


Trying to Understand

by CelesteArius



Category: Trinity Blood
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Manga-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-11 11:42:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 34
Words: 44,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3326132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CelesteArius/pseuds/CelesteArius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tres Iqus doesn't understand human emotions. He doesn't understand why humans laugh or cry. He has no emotions, and according to the dictionary, this means he is dead. As he tries to understand the complexities of human emotions, what will he discover about himself and his relationship and meaning to the people around him?  --- hiatus</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Tres didn't understand human emotions. He didn't understand why people cried, nor did he understand why people laughed.  
Esther told him that made her sad, but Tres didn't understand 'sad'. Abel said that didn't make sense. Tres was 'living', so he had to have emotions, right?

Negative. 

Tres could never say he 'enjoyed' anything, but he did like to spend a lot of time in the Vatican library. He 'enjoyed' reading, though he didn't necessarily need to. The information could be downloaded, if he requested it from Dr. Wordsworth. 

But Tres 'liked' to sit in the quiet rows, towering shelves of books hanging over him on either side. He 'liked' to take in the words, discover all the things he couldn't merely find a downloadable program for. 

He didn't need sleep, but rather hibernate for a few hours a night. So, when all other operatives were in bed or out on missions, he would come to the library and read for hours. In the five years he had spent at the Vatican, as a member of AX, he had almost read half the library. 

In his readings, he came across a book called 'The Physiology of Self-Esteem'. He had sat and read the book in one night, seeing as it was incredibly small. Considerably smaller than all the others. 

Something he read got him thinking. An excessive amount. 

The book had said that having emotions are a representation of consciousness. Consciousness means that being is living.  
Tres wasn't living. 'Living' was a quality for humans and animals. But at the same, he wasn't dead, was he? And what did dead actually mean? 

He skimmed his fingers over the spines of the books until he found the dictionary. The word dead was right at the top in bold, like it was waiting for him to make this connection. 

'Dead: no longer alive, as in, a dead body. Definition 2: (of a part of the body) having lost sensation; numb. Definition 3:-'  
This is the definition of the word 'dead' that bothered him so much. 

'Definition 3: having or displaying no emotion, sympathy or sensitivity.'

He didn't understand human emotions because he didn't have them. He was created as a killing machine, a Killing Doll was what he was called. He wasn't created to understand human emotions; he was only created to kill.

His creator’s theory was that if something had no emotional ties to anything in the world, and nothing within themselves, they would work better. 'Work' as in kill. The emotionless didn't need a reason, they only needed orders. They couldn't deem the innocent from the guilty, because emotions ruled that decision. 

And they had none. Tres had none. 

Therefore, he was dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Ah, well." It was the afternoon, and Cardinal Sforza had requested his presence. Tres calculated that it would take four-hundred sixty two seconds to reach her, but his presence wasn't required for another nine hundred. So, he had slowed his normally brisk pace.

He passed two novice Vatican patrol members outside their barracks. They were both talking, casually, not even noting his presence as he walked by.

"Ah, well," one had said to the other. "By then, he was dead anyway."

Dead. There was that word again. Ever since that night, it was haunting him. In distant conversations, being casually tossed about. Tres didn't understand why it bothered him so much. It was a word, just as any other.

He arrived four-hundred thirty eight seconds before his presence was required. As planned, despite his slowing pace. Or had he actually slowed down? No, past the novices he had resumed a normal pace.

He stood against the wall, like the obedient gunmetal hound he was. He needed to talk to Dr. Wordsworth about this uneasiness within him. It was out of place, and it needed fixed.

He was lost in the myriad of his thoughts when Sister Kate appeared in front of him. Her hologram blurred slightly before she spoke and knocked him out of his stupor. "Caterina-sama is ready for you," she said politely, and then disappeared.

Inside the room, his new master awaited at her desk. Her reading glasses sat atop her nose and her eyes were on papers in her hand.

"Ah, Tres," she said, sitting them down. "I was expecting you." She laced her fingers together and rested them on the table. "I need you to do me a favor, if you will. Nothing that will require you leaving the AX grounds."

"Yes, Caterina-sama." His response was robotic and obedient.

"I have gotten word that a few AX operatives have been less than… agreeable with our plans. Their loyalty has been faltering and they now pose a threat. Here." She handed him a paper, which he took immediately. On it was a list of operatives, their code names and unit numbers. Tres wasn't surprised to see Black Widow on the list.

"I want you to tail them, not all at once, of course," Caterina said. "Record any and all suspicious activity. Moreover, do not get yourself caught. Understood?" Tres nodded once. "Good. Any questions?"

Tres's hand twitched. Am I dead? The words lingered on the tip of his tongue, and he was conflicted in saying them. Apparently, she noticed this.

"Is there something wrong, Tres?" Caterina asked, confused. The Gunslinger never had any questions. He understood orders perfectly.

"Am I dead, Caterina-sama?" The words escaped him before he could decide against it. That had never happened to him before. What was that? Some slip in his processors?

"Dead?" Caterina repeated, even more confused now. "Whatever do you mean?"

"According to the Psychology of Self-Esteem, having emotions are a representation of consciousness. Consciousness means that a being is living. I do not have emotions, so I am not living. And according to definition 3 in New Oxford Dictionary 'dead' means 'having or displaying no emotion, sympathy or sensitivity.' I was created without emotions. Does this mean I am dead?"

Caterina-sama merely stared at him. Her blue eyes were wide and she looked shocked. What did this mean? Did this mean she agreed he was dead? Was she surprised he had discovered what he was?

Then, she smiled and looked down at her desk, to the papers sitting there. Of course. She did agree. Then, the Cardinal stood and approached him.

With her heels, she was taller than him, so he had to incline his head seven degrees to look at her. She put her hands on his face. "Tell me Tres," she said softly. "You would do anything for me, correct?"

"Positive."

"That is conviction," Caterina said, not showing her surprised. He had a lost look in his eyes. "Conviction is a belief. Tres, you have faith in me, correct?"

"Positive."

"Faith means you trust me." Her hands fell away from his face and she moved away. "Trust can be considered a hope. Hope is a feeling. Hope is an emotion. Tres, you are not dead. Do you remember what I told you the day we first met?"

"Positive." Of course he did. He would never forget.

"I told you you would live for me," Caterina said as she sat down. "And while you live for me, you cannot doubt yourself. You are living. You may not have emotions-" You may not believe you do, she wanted to correct herself "-does not mean you are dead. And you are forbidden to think this from now on. Am I understood?"

"Positive." His voice was slight quieter than before.

"Good," she said, waving her hand. "You are dismissed."

Tres nodded, turned and left. Despite Caterina-sama's words, worry still tore him apart from the inside.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Throughout the few days, Tres observed Maria Osborne, the 'Sharp Shot', operative number 09014. She was first on the list Caterina-sama had given him. The list was ordered from greatest to least, and she was at the top. On the first night, she had done nothing suspicious. Nor the second. She did her duties (helped Sister Margret in the Vatican orphanage) and went to bed, but not before bathing, praying and eating.

This was her ritual for those two days.

However, on the third, she strayed from this path. Tres watched from the shadows as she left her room and took off, dressed casually and warmly. Tres followed silently and was stepping lightly. Operatives who threatened AX also threatened Caterina-sama. This was not something he could allow.

He was loyal to her, he trusted her. So, he had hope. Hope meant he was living.

Caterina-sama's reason for suspicion grew more justified as Maria left AX grounds. She walked along the river, her pace rather quick. Like she had an appointment to keep. Her boots kept noise to a minimum and she didn't speak. She eventually reached the pier and stopped. They had been walking for nearly an hour now. Tres kept one hand on his gun, eyes scanning for the presence of anyone else. No one showed quite yet.

Tres got down to one knee, drawing one of his guns. Situations like this could become treacherous quickly. It was another four hundred forty nine seconds before another presence was identified. It came from the opposite side of the pier. Tres tried to see who it was, but couldn't from this distance. The unidentified figure stopped in front of Maria, and at this point, Tres could identify who they were.

It was Rodrick Credrick, a wanted conspirator against the AX and the Vatican. The two didn't speak at all, and Maria merely pulled a Manila envelope. On the outside was a large red stamp: [CONFIDENTIAL].

If you should find an operative is a threat to us, bring them in for questioning. Caterina-sama's orders had been written on the list.

Bring them in. Positive. Shoot the vampire first. He'll get away quickest when alarmed. He aimed his gun at Credrick's knee, and fired.

The bullet tore into the vampires muscle, ripping at the tendons and shattering bone. He roared and collapsed to the ground. Maria wiped her head around wildly, trying to see where the bullet had come from.

Before she knew it, she was down, too.

Tres stood to his full height, doing a quick scan around for more Methuselah. No signs of life other than the two on the ground. Maria sat up, not as affected by the bullet as Credrick. Tres's bullets were made from silver, something that could render vampires immobile for hours.

As soon as he came into view, Maria drew her own gun. With a single shot, it skid away from her. She held her stinging hand close to her chest, hissing at him.

"Damn Hound!" she cursed at him. Tres remained impassive. He was used to her hatred of him (not that if bothered him anyway, it just wasn't unusual to hear her curse at him).

With a quick kick to her head, his metal plated boot knocked her out cold. He did the same (only a little harder) to Rodrick Credrick.

Bring them in, don't kill them.

"Mission complete."


	4. Chapter 4

After hauling both Rodrick Credrick and Maria Osbourne onto his shoulders, he began taking them both back to the Vatican.

"I have caught both suspects," he said, and knew the information was being relayed to William Wordsworth. "Maria Osbourne, AKA 'Sharp Shot', operative number 09014. Caught aiding and abetting wanted conspirator, Rodrick Credrick, Methuselah."

He ended his report there, shifted Rodrick higher up on his shoulder and made his way back to the Vatican.

Rodrick and Maria were placed in cells and were to be questioned in morning. The Cardinal had requested his presence as soon as the sun broke over the horizon. Dr. Wordsworth had taken his report to her as soon as Tres had relayed it. (Caterina-sama swore he never slept.)

Tres stayed outside her office door for nearly an hour. There wasn't enough time for him to go back to the library, read and get back in time. It had been three days since he had been in the library, and he could say, with some uneasiness, that he actually missed reading.

He didn't know what it was about it all. There was just something about all the stillness, the age of it all. Hundreds of thousands of books had been burned during the war, but many people had saved them, hidden them away. There were very few, but some were from the late 20th century. Most were from the 21st, but he didn't… well, 'like' them as much.

Maybe it was… the forgetting. He liked to be enthralled with the words, it was… calming. But when did he ever need to be calmed? He couldn't explain it and it bothered him greatly. But it was addictive and almost euphoric, just to forget everything around him and focus on those stories for just a moment…

A loud 'ahem' made him jerk from his thoughts and look up. Father Abel Nightroad. "Good morning Tres-kun!" he said, loudly and slowly. Tres blinked.

"Information requested, Father Nightroad," he said. "Why are your speech patterns abnormal?"

"Because I told you good morning at least ten times and you didn't answer!" Abel gripped, making an exaggerated turn. "What are you thinking about, huh? What's going on in that metal head of yours?"

Tres merely blinked again. What was going on inside his head? Was it odd that even he couldn't tell? Something was wrong with him. Something was indeed wrong with him. There was… the uneasiness within him once more, just like the moment before he asked Caterina-sama if he was dead.

Should he ask Father Nightroad the same question? Caterina Sforza never had a problem lying to her operatives to keep them in line. He had watched her do it blatantly right in front of him. Who was to say… she hadn't done the same to him?

His uneasiness only grew.

"Father Nightroad," he suddenly said, interrupting the Crusnik's rant about how much Caterina-sama scared him. "Am I… dead?"

He had hesitated. Tres Iqus had hesitated? Since when?

"Pfft!" Father Nightroad scoffed loudly. "Of course you're not!" He laughed a little bit, and clamped his hand down on Tres's right shoulder. "I mean sure, you're robotic sometimes and a little weird and hard to understand, but you're not dead! Whatever would give you that idea?"

"According to Nathaniel Branden, having emotions is a symbol of consciousness and a consciousness is a symbol of being alive. I do not have emotions. So I am not alive, but dead. And according to New Oxford Dictionary, definition 3 of the word 'dead' means 'having or displaying no emotion, sympathy or sensitivity.' So, I am dead."

Abel seemed put off by all of this. Then, he laughed again. "Just because you weren't made with any emotions doesn't mean that you aren't alive," he said, sounding surprisingly reassuring. "I mean, if you asked me this, it must mean you're worried about it right? That's something."

Tres blinked again, and had to admit, he did feel slightly better hearing Father Nightroad say that. Meanwhile, the Crusnik began ranting on how cheesy it had sounded coming from him.

"Thank you… Father Nightroad."

And Abel smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

When Tres was allowed to go into the Cardinal's office, she was busy already, going over the countless documents on her desk. When he came in, she looked up. "I hear my assumption was correct," she sighed, sitting back in her seat. "We did have a traitor amongst us."

"Positive," Tres replied, and Caterina nodded.

"And I was right to send you," she said, lacing her fingers in front of her face. "You brought in both a traitor and a wanted conspirator. I'm proud of you, Tres."

Tres felt a little warmth within him, but couldn't figure out what it was or why it was there. "Negative," he responded. "I was only doing what was expected of me."

Caterina was quiet for a long while, and then she spoke. "What book were you reading? Before I gave you this mission, I mean."

Tres blinked. "What do you mean?" he questioned, despite already knowing what she meant.

"You've been reading in the library," Caterina said, smiling gently. "What book are you reading?"

"…The Fatal Crown," Tres finally admitted, unsure (once more) why he was feeling uneasy. It was… it seemed to always be there now, just a little ache in his lower torso, his stomach, that wouldn't go away at this point. It was uncomfortable, but only if this situations occurred. Asking questions that… bothered him, as Father Nightroad had put it.

He definitely needed to go see Dr. Wordsworth.

"That's nice…" Caterina sighed, and leaned back. She had an almost wistful look on her face, her lips stretched into a nostalgic smile. "Do tell me, once you have finished, how it all went? I wish I had the time to read like I used to."

"Positive." Tres wondered why. Why did she want to know what happened? Why waste the time? He supposed maybe it was for the same reason he wanted to discover what happened. The expectation.

Dr. Wordsworth was waiting in his office when Tres arrived. He was grumbling about something under his breath, reading page upon page of a report. "Ah Tres, welcome…" he mumbled off-handedly, not sounding very enthusiastic. He tossed the report onto the collective clutter of things on his desk and sighed heavily.

"Is something wrong, Dr. Wordsworth?" Tres asked.

"No, no nothing is wrong." William noticed that he hadn't asked for a status report like normal. Hopefully that robotic tick of his had been cured in his time here. He still counted in seconds and answered with 'positive' or 'negative', but it was something The Professor would have to whittle that away with time. "Moreover, why have you come here? Not that I don't enjoy the company, but you don't usually show unless you've been injured or for your monthly back-up."

There it was again. That god awful, sickening feeling. What was it?! It was frustrating him to no end.

But… he didn't get annoyed. Or frustrated. How was he… feeling this then?

"There is this… odd feeling inside me," he said, as monotone as he could. "It arises, it seems, when I…" He trailed off, and waited for a moment before he spoke again. "Am I dead, Dr. Wordsworth?" If anyone knows the real answer, it would be Dr. Wordsworth.

William looked surprised for a moment, and then laughed, much like Father Nightroad had. "Of course you aren't, you silly drone!" he laughed, practically doubling over. "Why in the world would you think that? Some stupid thing you read in the library?"

Tres looked down to the tiled floor, and that feeling was back, but worse than ever. Right. His fears were ridiculous. "In a book I read, it said that having emotions meant you were alive. I don't have emotions. So I am dead."

Dr. Wordsworth shook his head. "You know, for an android, normally so down to earth and realistic, you say some pretty dumb things," he said. "Tres, how many times have I worked on you now? I know you inside and out. You have the capability of emotions Tres. They've got to be in there somewhere. I mean, your EPU-"

He suddenly cut himself off. "What about my EPU?" he asked. "What is an EPU?"

Dr. Wordsworth looked at him with troubled eyes, then closed them and turned away. "Your EPU," the Professor said softly. "Your Emotions Processing Unit. Something that was disabled before you were activated. It seems… it's trying to come back on."


	6. Chapter 6

"All of the HC series were made, by default, with an EPU," The Professor explained. "When your creator decided he wanted to rebel against the Vatican, he shut off the Killing Dolls' EPU to ensure they would only follow his orders. As far as I know, only Unum and Duo were activated with their EPU on."

Tres watched as he paced around the room, looking disturbingly… something. Worried? Angry? Tres couldn't tell.

"Unum was reluctant to follow orders, Duo was always an egotist, so they were shut down and reactivated, their EPU's shut off. You were made with yours automatically off, mostly because Baribaldi didn't like making the same mistake twice. Or thrice in his case."

"And if mine was shut off," Tres said. "How is it coming on again?"

"That I don't know," The Professor responded, glaring at the many stakes of reports and blueprints on his desk. "I've noticed, gradually, over the past couple of weeks, it has begun affecting you more and more. Your body is directing energy towards that area of your processing system. It's been popping up in scans.

"Though I don't exactly know what this will mean for you. Baribaldi's notebooks, though we recovered them all, were encrypted. I guess he had a theory his rebellion wouldn't succeed and took precautions."

"When did it begin?" Tres questioned, not failing to notice the troubled look on Dr. Wordsworth's face.

"…About six weeks ago." The professor's eyes narrowed down at the pages he wouldn't stop flipping through. Tres thought back to where he was six weeks ago.

He had come back from a mission in Germany. He had given his report to Caterina-sama and Sister Kate, come to Dr. Wordsworth to have the data extracted and saved on file. Then… later on that night he had gone to library, and it was the night he read the Psychology of Self-Esteem.

Ah. So that's what caused all this. He had begun to doubt himself, question things he had been told. It was when he began to realize he was not alive.

Seeing as Dr. Wordsworth was absorbed in his reports and scans, Tres left. He felt… exhausted all of a sudden. 'Emotional fatigue,' he remembered Father Nightroad calling it. He had been exhausted despite doing nothing at all that day, and that had been his excuse.

Could this be what I am feeling?

An EPU… he had never heard of such a thing until now. Though Dr. Wordsworth knew, yet he never mentioned it. Did he think, perhaps, it was best? Did he suppose that Tres didn't need to know?

Unum and Duo were created before he was, and the day he was activated and met them, they acted the same as he does, or… did. Emotionless, quiet, even more ruthless than he ever was. He suddenly wished he had known them before that. He wanted to know what he was going to become.

That is, unless he could find some way to reverse this.

Tres wasn't paying attention to where he was walking, and was mildly surprised to see the doors to the library in front of him. Of course he would come here. This place was always a sort of refuge to him. It makes sense he would want to come here in the midst of being confused and plagued by something you didn't understand.

He swung open the door, letting the smell of old paper and wood great him. It was always quiet here. Always so quiet. But right now it was the greatest solace he could ask for.

He didn't want to read. He didn't feel the need nor the desire to. Instead, he sat in the armchair he had read in multiple times before and closed his eyes.

If he thought about it hard enough, he had to admit he was… apprehensive about what was happening to him. Until he and the Professor could decipher his creators notebooks, they were both left in the dark.

In his time at AX, he had seen the good and bad sides of emotions. There was the happiness, the peace and the gratitude. The types of emotions Father Nightroad always displayed. A blissful outward façade (a wonderful word he had discovered in his readings), but only to cover what was on the inside.

Turmoil, anger, sadness, loss, desperation, fear, guilt. He had seen them on the faces of humans and vampires alike, and they all looked so pained. The anger of those hungry for revenge. The turmoil of those unable to save themselves and the ones they loved. The loss of those left all alone. The fear of the ones faced with one stronger than them.

The guilt in Father Nightroad's eyes when he remembered the monstrous things he has done in the past.

He opened his eyes, staring at the bookshelf beside him. It was sheer irony that his gaze should fall upon 'What Will Happen to Me'. That was exactly how he felt.

Tres decided in that moment exactly what he needed to do. He had one person in mind. One person who believed (even when his EPU was still deactivated) he had emotions, despite them not being there. One person who always seemed to have the right answer to everything when it came to things of this nature.

Sister Esther Blanchett.


	7. Chapter 7

Tres was hesitant to talk to Sister Esther. Correction, he was probably hesitant to talk to anyone about this.

There were very few things Tres didn't know. He could fluently speak and understand every language in Europe, knew all there was needed to know about war theory, hell, he even knew the distance from Rome to Albion in centimeters.

But when it came to human emotions, he was left entirely in the dark.

Maybe that was why he was so fearful. It was hard to admit he didn't know something. That was that selfish, arrogant part of him he never knew he had until now.

AX members had never seen Tres 'wander' before. They had only seen him beeline from one place to another at a pace befitting his reason for going there. But today, Tres was moving slowly, dragging his feet.

He was stupid. Why was he doing this? He didn't want to leave the library in the first place. He was a mess. He didn't like this. He was thinking too much. Thinking was something humans did when there was nothing to be done.

He shook his head roughly when he made sure no one was around. He hated this. He didn't like being confused or scared. Granted, he knew humans didn't enjoy those two emotions, but now Tres had a whole new understanding of why.

But as fate would have it, Tres didn't have to go and find Sister Esther.

She came to him.

Or, more of ran into him, really. One moment he was alone in the courtyard and in the next, she was there. She groaned and clutched at her forehead. "Ow…" she said under her breath. "Ow my head, ow my bum, ow ow."

Tres offered his hand to her, which she took after a moment to regain herself. "I'm sorry, Sister Esther," he said to her. Though he didn't know why he was apologizing, after all she had ran into him. But if he weren't such an iron wall, he probably wouldn't have hurt her that badly.

Her forehead was red when she removed her hand, but she instantly paid it no mind when she saw who she had crashed into. "Father Tres!" she said, her voice a surprised squeak. She smiled sweetly at him. "I haven't seen you since our last mission together! It's been ages, how have you been?"

She asked these questions every time they ran into each other. Normally, he would always answer with some robotic response, looking completely bored-out-of-his-mind usual self. But this time, he was quiet, and his arched eyebrows knitted together.

"I have something I need to speak with you about, Sister Esther," he said, and only then did she realize he had stopped adding her last name. "But it must be held in the highest security, for even Caterina-sama must not know."

Sister Esther's blue eyes widened at that. Secret enough to be a don't-tell-Caterina-sama level secret? Oh, Lord help me… she thought.

"Of course, Father Tres, tell me."

Tres didn't know where to begin. Did he start with explaining what an EPU was? Or did he start from when he read in the library? Or maybe at his creation? He sighed, and Esther noted he looked… lost. It frightened her to see the normally so stoic android look like that.

"Here," Sister Esther said, grabbing his hand. She yanked at his arm (which only succeeding in hurting her own), and pulled him towards the fountain in the center. "Sit down and start from the very beginning."

"It is quite a long story," Tres mumbled quietly. Esther smiled and put her hand on his shoulder.

"I'll listen."

So Tres started at the very beginning. Telling her of Unum and Duo and their EPU's and his own. Then he told her what he read and his uneasiness and confusion. He told her what Caterina, Abel and William had said about him not being 'dead', but just a different definition of alive. Then, he told her about the things he was onslaught with at the moment: the unbearable confusion and the worry.

Though he was hesitant to start, when he began to speak, he found he couldn't stop. He told her everything, surprised at how easy it was to speak to her.

Well, of course. Caterina was his boss, she was the Iron Lady, the head-honcho. She was called such because of her desire and her ability to keep her emotions out of her decisions. Talking to her about these things… just seemed too wrong.

Abel was the Crusnik. He had confided in Tres many times in the past, and Tres was always there to listen and give the best response he could. It was always so straight forward and direct that Abel preferred talking to the Gunslinger above anyone else. He didn't beat around the bush or waste petty, air headed words like 'I'm sorry' or 'It'll all be okay.'

Tres understood that everything would probably never 'be okay'. There were always adversities you had to face in life, whether you liked it or not. And as long as an agreement to peace can be made between Methuselah and humans, the road to peace hadn't yet been located.

After he had finished his, as he called it, 'rant', Sister Esther was quiet. She was looking at a line of ants crawling around on the stone walkway. As Tres watched them, he found with surprise that he felt sorry for them. This world was already so big to him. It must be thousands of times larger for those little ants.

Without looking away, Esther began to speak. "I always knew there was no way you could been created with nothing in here," she said, touching her heart as she spoke. "But this is all… sad, honestly. Your creator, cutting all ties to your emotions like that? Monstrous!"

Tres's amber eyes looked at her profile. She huffed and crossed her arms, pressing her rosary against her. "I understand you're confused. I guess you don't have anyone to really talk to about things like this.

"Emotions are smothering things," she whispered, smiling almost wistfully. "When you're sad and alone, it can feel as though you are being crushed. But when you are happy, among friends, and… especially in love, you could never feel better."

Love. There was one of those words he heard often. 'I love you' of 'I'm in love with you'. "But what is love?" he asked softly.

Esther turned to him, meeting his troubled gaze. Her blue eyes gleamed gently. "It's all part of the human experience, Tres," she said, her voice comforting. "It might take some time, some rough patches and trials, but you'll have to figure it out." She smiled widely. "And you needn't worry. I'll be here for you every step of the way. I promise."

Tres held her gaze for a few more moments before he looked away again. Those ants were gone, scurrying back into their home where everything was so familiar and so comforting. Everything in front of Tres was dark, unexplored and confusing, but he was willing to face it.

He felt warmth overtake his chest. It was an extremely odd feeling, out of place like everything seemed to be. At the same time however, it wasn't unpleasant. …in fact, it made him want to… smile.

And so he did. Just a little bit. It felt weird, to have him mouth pulled in such a way. Esther didn't see; he wouldn't allow it quite yet.

"Thank you," he said, his voice sincere.

And Esther smiled as well.


	8. Chapter 8

Throughout the next month, Tres continued down the list Caterina had given. Despite his heavy suspicion of her, Monica Argento, the Black Widow, did nothing out of the ordinary. (That is, drink, swear and gripe fervently.) No other agent displayed any suspicious behavior. Caterina was pleased, seeing as she hated betrayal more than anything.

"Thank you for this, Tres," she had said, despite not needing to. She did not say any more, and he hadn't responded. Over the past weeks, he had felt more… tired than usual. He was dragging his feet, Dr. Wordsworth said constantly. He had Tres come to him every week now, instead of every month to check the progression of… what was happening to him.

Dr. Wordsworth called it his "humanization". Tres didn't know what to consider it. He'd been taught all his life that he was not a human, he was a machine, built to carry out the mission he was given by his creator. It was all he had ever known. But he was stepping into something new, something he had never seen, read or heard about before. He didn't like to consider it a 'humanization', but just a transformation.

He didn't like any of this. He didn't like changing. He preferred the way he was, the way he used to be. Nothing was confusing, he didn't always second guess anything he thought or did. He didn't like this transformation.

And it was getting worse.

It wasn't just permanent uneasiness now. There were also indescribable, unexplained flashes of anger. He was used to, by now, Dr. Wordsworth's constant rambling, and it had never bothered him before. But while he was sitting on a (now surprisingly cold) table, Dr. Wordsworth had started it again. Rambling incessantly. Tres sat there, silently. But he felt something hot and uncomfortable bubbling within him.

Dr. Wordsworth had stopped talking then, when he noticed Tres's hands. He had been gripping the edge of the metal table (3 inches thick…) very tightly. "Tres, are you alright?" he'd asked, and when the Professor finally got his point across to the Gunslinger, the android had realized that he had left deep hand prints in the table.

Only upon thinking about it later, he realized that he had… he had wanted to strangle the Professor. If only to make him shut up for a minute. It disturbed him greatly. Tonight, he sat on the floor instead of on his bed, instead of going to the library, and just… did nothing.

He stared at the wall, at the plain white of it, and decided he… he hated it. He hated all the blankness, the nothing that it was in his room. Caterina's bedroom was red and gold and beige, the imperial colors of Milan. Esther's room was royal blue with snow white accents.

His was just white. Blank. Nothing. It bothered him. He hated it, hated it, HATED IT. He closed his eyes, his head falling to his knees. Everything was so wrong. He was a machine, not a human. He shouldn't have to do this, he shouldn't have to put up with this. He hated this…

The two of them hadn't managed to decipher anything more about an EPU in Baribaldi's notebooks. Everything about the Emotions Processing Unit was encrypted so much more heavily than everything else. It was slow working, but Tres was getting more and more frustrated. At one point he snapped a pencil right in half without realizing he was even tightening his grip.

Since that day, Dr. Wordsworth decided he could handle the project himself. He suspected Tres was going through an emotional relapse, and he had been around plenty of women enough to realize he was going to be unpredictable. He often found himself chuckling at his own joke he didn't share with anyone else. Tres was like a woman at a certain time of the month.

When Tres wasn't required to do anything, he stayed in the library. He didn't read, he didn't want to anymore. He just sat in the silence alone, his eyes closed, and just listening. It was a warm day, so he had opened the windows. Warm, gentle winds blew into the room and sunlight bathed the dusty bookshelves and the old rug. He sat just below one of the open windows, letting the sunlight bathe over him and feeling the wind ruffle his hair.

The library looked extremely small from the outside, but it was bigger on the inside than it seemed. The inside followed the same pattern, with a single desk in the middle. The bookshelves spread from the center, with windows intermittent for every two rows. Where there wasn't a window, there was, instead, a chair between the shelves.

This was the place that Tres felt the most comfortable. If he had to pick somewhere to live, it would be here. He loved the soft browns and greens, the deep mahogany wood of the chairs and bookshelves. He leaned back against the wall. The birds chirped outside, and he could almost barely hear the murmur of people talking.

This is where he wanted to live.

Esther Blanchett had to admit, she was really worried for Tres. Ever since their conversation a few weeks ago, she had seen neither hide nor hair of the android. She had been busy, yes, running errands for the Vatican in cities close to Rome (mostly delivering or receiving documents for Lady Caterina), but she probably should have made more of an effort to see him.

He hadn't been his normal Tres self. He had been confused and scared (though he would have never admitted it), and that scared Esther. She had once asked him if he had had any emotions, and when he had replied with a sharp "negative", she had told him that made her sad. She knew then that he hadn't understood, but now…

She found Dr. Wordsworth by accident, nearly crashing into him much like she had Tres. She really needed to work on looking where she walked… He had laughed at it, brushing it off as merely an accident. And when she had asked, he told her exactly where he was.

"The library, over in the north side of the Vatican grounds."

So that was where Esther went.


	9. Chapter 9

Esther had a hard time finding the library. She hadn't realized there even was one on the Vatican grounds. When she did see any sight of it, it was really by pure luck. The outside of the building was covered in vines, wrapping around the walls like a boa constrictor. Overgrown trees and bushes crowded around the pathway, almost blocking it from view.

The doors gleamed in the sunlight. They were old, red and brown and green. She wanted to open the door and walk in, but she was hesitant to do so. Wouldn't that be rude? she wondered to herself. So, she brought up her hand and knocked on the door. She brought her hands together in front of her and waited. And waited.

Maybe he wasn't in there? Or… maybe he wanted to be alone. She grabbed the door handle and went in.

God, it was beautiful in here! Why had she never known of this place? The room smelled old, like aged leather, wood and paper. Light came in through the open windows as well as a breeze that ruffled her hair. It was quiet, other than the tweeting of the birds outside. Most of all, it was so peaceful in here. It was so much better than any cathedral.

"Father Tres?" she asked aloud, but there was no response. "Father Tres, I know you're in here." She walked forward until her hand glided over the handle of one of his customized Beretta's. The other was lying beside it.

She looked down each of the rows until she located the Gunslinger. He was sitting on the floor underneath the window, his knees brought up to his chest. His eyes were closed and he was leaned back against the wall. He looked to be… asleep? "Tres?" she questioned again, and he opened his amber eyes.

"Sister Esther." He didn't say anything more. She went and sat just in front of him, seeing as the isle between the shelves wasn't quite wide enough for them both to sit side by side.

"Father Tres, talk to me," she said, having noted the odd look in his eyes. A look of desperation and loss. A look that shouldn't be there. "Tell me what's wrong."

Tres looked away from her, looking much more troubled then she had ever seen before. "Everything," he told her. That was one of those things about Esther that Tres hated and liked at the same time. He was unable to lie to her, and he was unable to keep his words in his mouth. They escaped freely, without his consent.

Esther waited for him to say more, and when he did, she listened carefully. "It's all so wrong," he said, his voice surprisingly broken. It broke Esther's heart to hear that. "I can't think clearly anymore. I wanted to… I wanted to strangle Dr. Wordsworth, if only to get him to shut up. I'm sick of the blankness in my room and I don't want to do anything. I just want to sit here and stay forever. I don't like feeling like this Esther. I hate it, I can't stand it anymore."

Esther listened to the anger in his voice and knew she was right to come find him. He needed someone to talk to, someone to help him through all this. "Father Tres, I understand you're confused right now," she whispered softly. "It sounds like you're going through depression."

Tres's amber eyes met hers. "And what is that?"

Esther didn't answer immediately, but instead stood up. She knew there was a dictionary around here somewhere. She looked at the books in the shelves until she found what she was looking for on the next shelf.

Depression," she said aloud, the book heavy in her hand. "A condition of mental disturbance characterized by depression to a greater degree than seems warranted by the external circumstances, typically with lack of energy and difficulty in maintaining concentration or interest in life." She flipped the page. "Symptoms of depression are: Difficulty concentrating, remembering details, and making decisions, fatigue and decreased energy, feelings of guilt, worthlessness, and/or helplessness, feelings of hopelessness and/or pessimism. Irritability, restlessness, loss of interest in activities or hobbies once pleasurable. In your case, probably reading." He kept his eyes on the worn carpet, and she didn't even know if he was listening anymore.

"And persistent feelings or sadness, anxiety, or emptiness." Esther closed the book and sat it on the shelf beside her, looking down at him. "Emptiness, like how you believe you're dead and not alive."

Esther knelt in front of Tres, reaching out to put her hands on his cheeks to make him look at her. "Tres, just because one person says something doesn't mean you're dead, remember? Everyone has opinions. I think you're alive. And so does Father Nightroad and Dr. Wordsworth and Lady Caterina. And now, you do have emotions.

"Like I said, it would take time for you to understand everything that you're feeling. It's coming out all at once and you can't deal with it all. At least not alone." She put her hand over top of his own, slightly surprised to see he didn't have his gloves on. (And yet, he still had skin there, and he had fingernails! But why was this so strange to her? Probably because she had never seen it…)

"Father Tres, I know how confusing the world can be, especially when you're lost within yourself. When I left Istavan to come to Rome, I didn't know if I was making the right choice. I wanted to help people and I wanted to come with you and Father Nightroad. Bishop Vitez always told me to follow my dreams, and my dream was always to help people. And right now, Father Tres, I want to help you."

"But why?" he asked, his voice quiet. She smiled at him, softly.

"Because, Tres," she said, sitting back now. She took in the look of his lost face, the way he was huddled up against the wall, in the corner, like he was trying to hide from the world. "You're lost, and you need to find your way through all of this. You don't need to worry anymore, Father Tres."

She smiled again, and Tres found that he had such solace in her smile. In her presence. It wasn't something he had felt with anyone else. Not with The Cardinal, though he owed her his life. Not with Dr. Wordsworth, though the Professor was trying everything he could to help him.

"I'm always going to be here."


	10. Chapter 10

As many nights as Tres spent in the library, he had never felt as tired as he had tonight. He sat at the desk in the center of the library, the book The Fatal Crown in front of him. After talking to Esther, he had felt slightly better. Knowing that someone was going to be there for him reassured him that everything was going to be… okay.

So he got back to reading again. Lady Caterina had asked him to tell her how the book went, and he reminded himself, with much apprehension, that he hadn't been reading it at all for the past month. He wasn't even sure Caterina-sama remembered what she had asked him to do, but he wanted to finish it for himself.

But when the sun began setting, he found he was unable to keep his eyes open. The words blurred in and out of focus. He didn't know why at the moment. He rested his cheek against his palm, closing his eyes…

When he opened them again, he wasn't in the library anymore. There was no book, no desk, no calming room. He was in complete darkness. He couldn't move his legs to walk, and he couldn't speak, but he looked around, trying to see where he was. Had he been ambushed? He reached for his guns, only to find that they weren't there.

He heard footsteps, but he couldn't tell where they were coming from. They echoed around him and they were rushed. Then, a flash of light, of color. There was a person. Running past him. He couldn't see who they were; he only saw a body, their clothes.

Uniforms like the one he had been given when he was first created.

Who was it? Had a Killing Doll other than himself survived? Other than Duo? Was it Unum? Or Septem? He listened to the footsteps as they doubled. There were two? He spun around, looking for any sign of them. His voice still refused to escape his throat.

Then, everything lit up. The black room became blindingly white. All around him were his brothers. Unum and Duo were there as well, but he saw no sign of emotion in their cold amber eyes. "You failed, Tres Iqus." The voice was so familiar… one he hadn't heard in years…

Professor Gepetto Garibaldi.

He turned and, behind his brothers, he saw him. His creator had his eyes narrowed, and Tres felt an unnatural fear run through him. He wanted nothing more than to turn and run but he couldn't. One, he was surrounded, and two, he couldn't move.

"The reason you were created was to help me destroy the Vatican," he continued, his voice cold. "Your brothers died for me and what did you do? You watched them die and did nothing. You accepted the hand of the Iron bitch and became her subject." The rest of the HC series took a step closer to him, tightening the circle.

"She's not," Tres said bravely, finally finding his voice. "She is not a-"

And as suddenly as it came, it was gone. He was back in the darkness again. His brothers and Gepetto were gone once more. And a new scene came once more. He was pressed against the wall, by Duo, Bartholomew. "Pathetic," his brother hissed in his face. "I cannot understand why you hold these memories to the highest security. You're weak, you are not a machine."

And then Duo was gone. Tres fell to his knees, the pressure of his brothers hand still lingering around his neck.

I'm not a machine… machine's know how to follow orders, machines don't have emotions, machines don't feel like this. I'm not human, I've never been human…

What am I?

And then he woke up, feeling something touch his arm. He shot up so fast he fell backwards. He forgot he was still in the library. He fell back painfully, his guns digging into his back. Pain? I don't feel pain… He looked up, seeing Sister Esther standing there, out of breath.

"Father Tres?" He looked out the window, noticing the sun was up. Had he… slept the entire night? "Father Tres, are you okay? You were…"

I was what? He wondered that very thing himself. So many things were happening, and he felt it was much too fast. What was that? A memory? No, it couldn't have been. Gepetto Garibaldi had never had that conversation with him before. His brothers had never surrounded him like that before. And Duo? Yes, that had happened. That was a memory.

Yet, he did not understand. What was that? A loop in his memory banks? Moreover, how had it become day time so quickly? Not even twenty-six hundred seconds had passed since he had closed his eyes.

"You were sleeping and I thought you looked a little distressed…" The rest of Sister Esther's statement caught him off guard. Sleeping? No, sleeping was something humans did, and he was not…

He was not machine, but he was not human either. So… what was he again?

He stood up abruptly, feeling oddly flustered again. "Sleeping, no I couldn't have been…" he mumbled to himself.

Tres was lost once more, not knowing what to say or how to react to the possibility that he had been sleeping of all things. Humans slept, but he wasn't human. Machine's didn't sleep, so that meant he wasn't a machine. So… was he more human than machine now? No, impossible. He understood he looked human, and had a human brain, but everything else within him was substituted with metal parts and wires.

He ignored Sister Esther's questioning looks and left the library abruptly.

After all this, he realized he desperately needed to decipher his creator's notebooks on Duo and Unum. It was the only way he was going to be able to figure out what was going on. If Tres knew anything, it was that Gepetto Garibaldi was very thorough in his notes. It would be there, he knew it.

It would just be a matter of deciphering the code encrypting the information he needed.


	11. Chapter 11

The Professor wasn't in his office when Tres came in. In fact, his monitor was off and it was cold, signaling that the man hadn't been in it for at least a day. He's probably off experimenting, Tres thought, thinking of Poseidon WWW. Most likely another failure…

Tres didn't mind the cold, and his heavy priest robes would keep him warm anyway. Still, it didn't matter regardless. After searching through the various boxes that AX had kept on the HC series and Gepetto Garibaldi, he finally found the two, faded brown notebooks labeled 'HC-IX' and 'HC-IIX'. Unum and Duo.

Tres knew, even before he started, that deciphering the notebooks was going to be a trying task. Dr. Wordsworth had been trying for three years on Tres's notebook, and had only gotten about a third of the way through it. Hopefully Tres would have better luck. At this point, he was desperate.

He didn't know how long he sat there, trying to figure out in his head where to even begin. It made no sense, there weren't even words!

"Vkxambhg hgx: ngnf," said the first line. Complete gibberish. No pattern, no set rule that Tres could see. It was the first time in a long while did he think that his creator had been a complete psychopath. "T vextk lnvxll, xqvvxim yhk hgx yetp: max XIN, exym hg, kxlnemxw bg AV-BQ mh wxyr wbkxvm hkwxkl."

After reading over that bit for hours, trying to conduct some sort of reasoning behind the letters, something clicked. Only three words in the English language began with only one letter: a, I and O, in poetry uses, of course. From Tres's notebook, after deciphered, showed Gepetto did not use these patterns, so all that was left was 'A' or 'I'. T = I, A he wrote. There was a start.

Considering that 't' was, in fact, an 'a', he began from there, deciphering every t he saw, There were only two, so it didn't help him as much as he needed it to. But he kept going. He assumed XIN had only two possible uses: for OPS or EPU. Using OPS as XIN, he worked on that.

Vkoambhg hgo: sgsf. A veoll, oqvvopm yhk hgo yetp: max OPS, eoym hg, kolnemow bg AV-BQ mh woyr wbkovm hkwokl.

Using hgo as his basis, he wrote down a list of every word that ended in o. There were a few options: who, bio, ego, ago, two, and duo. So now, he wrote: h=d, g=u and began again from there.

No, the words were back to not making sense. He scratched out 'duo' and began again with 'who'. No sense once more. He retried with 'bio'; no luck. He took a breath to calm himself, as this was frustrating him to no end.

He tried again with 'two'.

Nothing. Start all over. He crumpled up the paper and threw it haphazardly against the floor. His head was hurting, but there was no sign of physical injury. This was getting infuriating.

This time, he repeated the process, using EPU as XIN.

As the hours wore on, he realized that words were starting to form from all this gibberish. He kept working on it, and soon, he had deciphered the first three words.

Creation one: unum.

This was it. He had cracked it. And he knew exactly what Gepetto was using. A Caesar cipher. He had read about it in a book about Rome, more specifically, of Julius Caesar. He remembered the image provided, and drew it out on the paper he was writing on, using T for A, and so on.

Using the image he had drawn, he deciphered the rest.

Creation one: unum. A clear success, except for one flaw: the EPU, left on, resulted in HC-IX to defy direct orders.

The full reality of what Tres had just done didn't sink in for a few moments. But he realized, with an odd feeling of pride, that he had just cracked Gepetto Garibaldi's code. Quickly, he grabbed his own notebook and read over it, to see if the Caesar cipher applied there as well. It did, though every letter had been shifted over two. 'A' now corresponded to 'R' and so on.

And Tres had that irresistible urge to smile again.

He really needed to find the Professor.

He left the cold room in favor of the warmth of outside. Tres hadn't realized it, but he had been working for nearly two days straight. He should be exhausted, but he was only exhilarated. He went to the Professor's testing room, as it was so dubbed, and wasn't surprised to find Dr. Wordsworth there.

He was surprised to see Abel.

As he swung the reinforced door open, Abel looked him up and down, a stunned look on his face. "Geez, Tres-kun…" he murmured somewhat sheepishly. "You look… exhausted." A pure understatement, the Crusnik thought to himself. He looks awful. But what is that gleam in his eye?

"Dr. Wordsworth," Tres said, ignoring his partner's questioning looks. "I did it. I cracked the code."

William's eyebrows knitted. "What code? What do you mean?"

Abel gapped openly as Tres did something so… un-Treslike. His broad shoulders dropped as though a weight had been put on them. He grabbed Dr. Wordsworth by the wrist and drug him outside the bunker, and back towards his office.

"Tres, what are you doing?" Dr. Wordsworth said, sounding incredibly aghast. Tres didn't grace him with any sort of response until they got to the office.

"Look," Tres said, flipping open the notebook on Unum. "I've figured it out. What he's using to encrypt his notes. It's called a Caesar cipher, designed by the ancient Roman emperor Julius Caesar. Watch." Tres redrew the cipher for Unum, and then explained how the letters correlated together, one by one.

Dr. Wordsworth listened quietly the entire time, merely bobbing his head occasionally.

"There was a book in the library I read about ancient Rome and the emperors," Tres said. "Caesar used the cipher to encrypt documents with military significance, just like Gepetto Garibaldi has done in his notebooks. The book said it was easy to crack, but considering it hadn't been used since long before the Apocalypse, I suspect he thought it would be safe."

William smiled and clamped him hard on the shoulder. "I'm proud of you, Tres," he said. "Think of all the things we'll be able to discover now! Oh, I can't wait to decipher all of them!"

"Each notebook consists of a different shift of letters," Tres explained further. "In Unum's, 'A' corresponds with 'T'. In mine, 'A' matches with 'R'. I'm fairly certain that this pattern continues indefinitely."

"Tres, I could kiss you right now…" Dr. Wordsworth murmured dreamily.

To which Tres quickly replied, "Please, refrain from doing so."


	12. Chapter 12

Since William understood how badly Tres wanted to go through Unum and Duo's notebooks, he let the Gunslinger handle it. Personally, he was going to delve into Tres's notebook. He wanted to see what more there was to the Gunslinger.

So, the pair worked together in silence. Tres had already memorized the Caesar cipher for Unum, and his CPU now worked for him, switching letters to make sense to him.

Creation one: unum. A clear success, except for one flaw: the EPU, left on, resulted in HC-IX to defy direct orders. The first sentence he deciphered. Several diagrams of what he assumed to be an EPU were below it.

It was a very small, curved piece of metal that went above the brain stem, more of an attachment really. Tres found himself subconsciously touching the back of his head, above where it would be. So that's where you are, huh? he thought, but didn't feel anything other than wonder. That little thing was causing all this mess…

Albion has been more than gracious towards my advancements. Troops constantly die due to inadequate guidance from their so called 'leaders'. Gaining subjects has been easier than I would expect. Since the alliance between Albion and the Vatican has indeed become a inauspicious one, they have not caught wind of this.

It took several tries, several years, and several changes to original plans and models to develop my first success. HC-IX, the first of the Killing Doll sequence. Homo Caedelius, the people made for destructions sake.

The body was of a commander, Robert Fredrickson. He was twenty nine years of age.

At this point, Tres stopped reading rather abruptly. He… he had been using people? Granted, Tres knew little of his creation, but didn't suspect something like this…

He looked rather gruff, nothing I needed. Funding was short so I could not make them tall nor muscular, as wiring and rods for bones were not consistently found. Titanium is quite expensive, and the Tungsten alloy needed for the brain casing is hard to find and work with.

Having never had children, I had an unexplainable desire to make them, how should I say, baby faced. Sheep dog looking. It was a spur of the moment decision, one constructed whilst my mind was drunk on coffee, tea and sleep deprivation.

And indeed, these things I wanted to create, they were absolutely my children. I gave them life while they had none. It made me feel like God.

Tres turned a few pages.

Unum is a rather sassy character. Through my heartened efforts I have discovered his unwillingness to obey orders to the T, as the English saying goes, and comes off as lazy. Maybe it if residual fragments of Robert Fredrickson's mind, though God willing, it is not. My child need not be burdened by the life before.

As for my next planned creation, he will be the exact same way. My hypothesis is that this one, HC-IIX, Duo Iqus, will be more cooperative. If he is not, I will re-evaluate my notes and discover the problem.

Tres closed the notebook and abruptly stood up, pushing his chair back with a loud grating noise.

Professor Wordsworth looked up just before Tres grabbed his notebook and began skimming quickly.

He ignored William's questions as he looked through the jumbled words, only needing to find one thing. It was two pages away, situated on the seventh line from the top. There. It glared at him, pointedly mocking him. There were only two words.

Alexander Braddock.

His name.

My third subject was named Alexander Braddock, a General from out of Lewes. He was only twenty years old. The youngest of all my subjects. I felt bad for him. He had a family back home, I know because I found a picture in the pocket of his coat.

Tres flipped the page, and found there was a picture. It was held in by something sticky, like resin. But it showed an older woman, with kind brown eyes standing beside another, younger man. In front of them were two girls, twins from the looks of them, with soft blonde hair curled into ringlets.

That younger man was him.

Staring down at the slightly faded picture, he felt like he was staring at an alien. The man in the picture looked nothing like him: his face was narrower, his eyebrows not as sharp, his hair longer, lips not as full. Eyes were bright, vibrant green and a smile was on that face.

Nothing like him at all.

So this was where he had come from. From this family, from Lewes. The two young children in the photo would most likely be alive, or, at the least, not died of old age. They would be in their thirties now, he realized.

If he went back to Lewes, would be able to find them? His… sisters?

A gave the book back to Dr. Wordsworth and left. He was not seeking sanctuary, but rather sleep. He was completely drained and it felt awful. He now understood how Esther or Abel felt when they said they were tired.

He made his way slowly to his room, his pace not as fast as normal. It was dark, and he noticed he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The struggle was evident in the way his eyelids drooped every ten seconds.

Once he made it to his room, with its plain white walls, he began to hate it again, but it didn't matter. He didn't even leave his guns on the table before collapsing in the bed and falling asleep.

–––

Tres did not sleep well. He was plagued by fleeting images of two girls screaming and a fire. There were brief bursts of images, too quick to pick out anything. Those two girls could be his sisters; the fire could be destroying his home.

When he jolted awake, he noticed there was a heavy light in the room. What time was it? It was 3:42.

…he had slept most of the afternoon!

A knocking sounded at his door, and Tres recognized it as the sound that had woke him. "Father Tres, are you in there?" It was Sister Esther.

"Yes," he mumbled, just loud enough for her to hear. The door swung open, and she came in. Her white/blue habit nearly blended in with the white of his room.

"Oh, wow…" she breathed, looking at him. "You look exhausted."

"That is because I am." His answer was short, clipped. He hadn't meant to sound irritated. He supposed he wasn't a… what was the word? Morning person. He supposed he wasn't a morning person yet.

But Esther merely smiled widely and came over to where he sat. She reached out her hand and ran her fingers through his brown hair. Her nails brushed along his scalp and he found his eyes closing against his will once more, a contented sigh escaping him.

"Lay back down, then," she whispered gently. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I haven't seen you since you stormed out of the library." Oh, right. That incident seemed like it had been so long ago, when in reality it had only been three days. But Tres didn't waste energy thinking on that. Esther practically forced him to lie back down, her fingers still running their course through his hair. It felt no incredibly nice.

Esther smiled when he relaxed, signaling he was asleep now. Carefully, she unsnapped the clasps on his gun holsters, and began to pull out his Jericho M13's. Goodness, they were heavy! She had to heave them up with both hands to get them onto the bedside table. Then she pulled off his heavy metal rosary, not allowing it to clatter too heavily on the wood.

She ran her fingers through his sinfully soft brown hair before leaning down, pressing her lips gently to his forehead.

"Sleep well, Tres-kun."


	13. Chapter 13

When Tres woke again, it had been an hour and he was alone. He found, with some surprise, he missed Esther's presence. When he had gotten his guns and rosary back on, which he had noticed she had taken off, he left, intent on completing only one thing.

He went to the reserve building, where the storage rooms were located down in the basement. It was locked up with the highest security the AX had. Information on all of the Vatican's secret operations, along with everything on their operatives, were here. Only members of the Papal State Affairs Special Operations Section were allowed to enter.

Inside, the room smelled heavily of dust and paper. Several cases of files and information the Vatican deemed necessary were stacked ceiling high. But he had been here before; he knew exactly where he needed to look. He went directly into the midst of the boxes, and found what he needed.

'Tres Iqus, AX Operative 02, Gunslinger'. His own files. From his meeting with Abel Nightroad in St. Angelo to now. Professor Wordsworth made it his personal project (despite it being his job, anyway) to make sure every file was absolutely up to date.

He pulled the box out of the stack it was within, sat it on the floor and opened it. They were all organized by year. He reached back to 3055, the year of the battle of St. Angelo, and pulled out the file it held.

He knew Father Nightroad had to write his account of what happened that day, and since Tres had never read it, he was honestly curious. He didn't know where this sudden whim had come from, but it was something he felt he needed.

April 3055 – St. Angelo

Lady Caterina called me out to St. Angelo to suppress the HC series rebellion, led by Gepetto Garibaldi. There were ten of them holding down the fort inside the city. I didn't know exactly what I would be facing, as no one had seen the HC units in combat before. They all looked exactly the same, with slight variations in hair length, uniforms and guns. They had their model number front and center. Numbers Nine and Ten greeted me upon my arrival at the outer wall. They were stronger than I expected them to be, so I activated Crusnik at 40% release. Inside were the others. One through Eight. I didn't see Professor Garibaldi, so I assumed he had fled to let his Dolls handle me. I sliced through five and seven immediately, their gunfire just barely grazing me. Five, Six and Three surrounded me in a triad formation then. With a swing of my scythe, I had cut off Three's right arm and knocked away one of his guns, killed Five and cut Six's gun in half. His body soon followed. Though I had some close calls, I cut them down. Well, all except for Three.

Overall, he seemed to be the one with the best battle experience. I didn't exactly know if the red liquid pooling all around the two of us was blood or not, but I didn't want to spill anymore. I didn't want to have to kill him. But he was insistent that he didn't have blood, that he was not human, but rather a machine. He fired at me, and I found it sad he wouldn't surrender like I had asked. So I cut him down as well. Caterina arrived shortly after, told me she was pleased the rebellion had been suppressed, and said I could leave. I asked what had become of Garibaldi, and she told me that he had committed suicide rather than be captured by AX. I told her it was a shame that I had to kill all the HC Killing Dolls, but she convinced me it was necessary. That was the last I heard her say before I left the fort.

The report ended there. That was all Abel had written. Tres had known that the Crusnik hadn't wanted to kill him and his brothers, but he hadn't thought he truly regretted it. So, it seemed that Abel really did consider him a human back then.

He went further into the files, looking for anything he could on the human he was before. On Alexander Braddock. He found nothing on that name specifically, but he did find a newspaper from Lewes.

On May 2nd, 3034. It was old and faded, obviously been through much weathering. There was one picture, and Tres was surprised to see what of.

A building on fire.

Fire destroys local family's home, read the title. He hesitated before reading more.

In this small town, the Braddock's are well known. Their eldest son, Alexander Braddock, is a General in Albion's national army. Their mother, Lidia Braddock, is the towns nurse. Her daughters, Linda and Alexis, are aspiring to be like their mother. Arsons attacked last night, burning down the family home that had been standing for as long as Armageddon, nearly killing Linda and Alexis Braddock and severly injuring their elder brother, Alexander. He-

The rest was blocked by a heavy brown stain. He put it back in the box, disappointed, but more curious now. Lewes, Albion itself was so far away from here. Even if his sisters were still alive, he wouldn't be able to go and find them quite yet.

And where had that paper came from? He didn't recall it ever being there before. Or maybe it was simply because he didn't think it was necessary at the time he had seen it before. So, he stood up and left the cold, dark room, instead heading through the security ports to the outside world. He wanted to look for more, but just as he was about to head to the records lab, he recieved a transmission.

"Gunslinger, Caterina-sama requires your presence here in 600 seconds." It was Sister Kate. "You and Sister Blanchett are to depart for Letetia in the Kingdom of Franc. Is that understood?"

"Positive, Iron Maiden," he replied, and the transmission cut off. 600 seconds. 10 minutes. He wasn't too far away from Caterina-sama's office. Still, he sighed and headed there anyway, standing at attention just outside her door. It was nearly a minute before they were due in did Tres hear someone running down the hall.

Esther put her hands on her knees in front of him, looking quite flustered. His mouth quirked at the sight, though he did not notice. "I'm not late am I?" she gushed, straightening her habit and fixing her hair with the window as a mirror.

"No, you're not," Tres responded. "You still have a few moments." She looked back at him, and smiled warmly. He felt a warm, bubbling feeling sweep through him. He forgot where he was for a moment, forgot about everything, for a brief gap in time.

And then he was back when the door opened and Sister Kate was there, telling them to come in.

Caterina looked quite irked and tired when they entered, standing side by side in front of her. Her brow was furrowed as she looked at the two of them. "Father Tres, Sister Esther," she said. "I am sending you both to Letetia. There have been numerous reports of methuselah attacks, along with other strange occurances.

"Entire families have seemed to get up in the middle of the night and disappear without a trace, animals have been going insane and attacking their owners. Also, the rain there has not stopped in sixty-five days. Floods have washed away crops and homes. The people are desperate for the Vatican's help. They think, along with the Methuselah, their town has been cursed by witches. Figure out the source of the problem, fix it, and help the townspeople rebuild themselves. I expect daily reports, Father Tres."

"Positive," the Gunslinger replied.

"You all have two hours to pack you supplies and get to the station. You are dismissed." She waved her hand, the two of them bowed, and they left. Tres didn't miss Caterina-sama's heavy sigh as they went. He knew that the Cardinal hated Sister Esther, but he could never understand why. Tres didn't mind her in the slightest. In fact, it was wonderful to be around her. She was kind and understanding and cute-

Wait. Did he just think that?

He looked down at the nun beside him.

Yes. Esther was down right adorable.


	14. Chapter 14

Esther had to admit, every time she travelled on a train, she was reminded of when she first came to Rome from Istvan. It had been right after they had defeated Gyula and stopped the Star of Sorrow from destroying Rome. She was also reminded the blond French boy, Etoile, who had barged inside their cabin and directly into Father Tres. She laughed to herself, remembering how the young boy wouldn't stop calling Tres "Bro".

As the two of them waited for the train to arrive, she leaned back and let her gaze wander around the crowd. She wondered what sort of mission Father Nightroad was on now. She hadn't seen him in quite a considerable amount of time, and missed his charismatic attitude.

"Father Tres?" she murmured, watching a boy beg his mother for a toy on a cart. "Where has Father Nightroad been sent off to?"

"He has been sent off to Krakow in the Grand Duchy of Jagiello," Tres replied quietly. "He will return long before we do, I am sure." Esther hummed some sort of reply and heard screeching noises in the distance. The train was coming. She stood up, stretched, and grabbed her piece of luggage. Tres came to stand beside her as close to the border line as they could, his case in hand. To be honest, it didn't consist of anything normal. Not in any way. All he had was extra ammunition for his guns. And a book. At least, she thought. Esther had only caught a glimpse…

As the train came screeching by, her hair was blown into her face, and into her mouth. That resulted in her spiting it out and trying to make it look halfway decent under her coif. From Rome, it would take nearly 13 hours to get from Rome to their final stop of Paris, with one stop 5 ½ hours in at Milan.

Caterina-sama's hometown… Esther thought as they boarded the train. I wonder if she misses Milan as much as I do Istvan. She sighed and found her way to the cabin the two of them would be sharing. It wasn't too far away from the entrance to the car, thank goodness. After the two of them got settled, Esther sat down heavily and looked out the window. Clouds were moving in; Rome would be getting some rain soon. There had been a dry spell for much of the spring.

As the train began to head northwards to Milan, Esther found herself nodding off. Train rides were so boring, and Tres was being so quiet in the seat across from her. Without Abel, there really was no exciting conversation. But Esther didn't mind. She liked this silence just as much as that. In fact, maybe she liked it more.

Her blue eyes looked over to Tres. He was reading a book. So he had indeed brought one. The book had a yellow and black cover and no identifying words. "What are you reading, Father Tres?" she asked, and he looked up at her.

"The Fatal Crown," he responded, his amber eyes only briefly returning to the page.

"What is it about?"

A long silence reigned after Esther's question. The clacking of the trains wheels was the only reliever. During that long, quiet moment, Tres seemed to be debating something internally, his finger smoothing over the edge of the page. Then, Tres spoke again.

"It's historical fiction," he explained. "It tells stories of Albion and the Kingdom of Franc long before now. Two thousand years before today."

"Wow!" Esther's blue eyes lit up in excitement and she crossed the car to look at the words he was reading. "I mean, I know you're fascinated by history in general, but I'm honestly interested now."

"I prefer to think of myself as a historian," he said softly. "I do find reading history books are much more interesting than anything else I have picked up." He turned his amber eyes back to the book, hyper aware of Esther's cheek against his shoulder as she read as well.

"Who's Maud?" Esther finally asked, breaking the silence and his line of sight as she pointed at the girl's name.

"The daughter of the King," Tres explained. "Henry, the King of England and Duke of Normandy. England was what Albion used to be referred to as. And Normandy was a territory of the Kingdom of Franc, or France, as it used to be called."

He explained more and more of the books inner workings to her, but only at her request. She seemed to be fascinated by the story, much like he was. She soaked up everything he said like a sponge, only interrupting him occasionally to ask questions. It was interesting for him to watch her reactions to everything he told her. A historian in bloom, he thought, somewhat surprised at how mediocre his own thought sounded.

Before the two of them knew it, Milan was upon them. It was two hours until their train left again for Paris, and Esther insisted they go about the city. She wanted to see all Milan had to offer.

First, they wandered around the streets, her greeting people warmly as she passed, him following behind. They passed a beautiful rounded building, which Tres informed her was the L'Ultima Cena, where the painting "The Last Supper" had been kept before Armageddon. The paintings were long gone and it had been turned into sort of a hotel.

Esther thought it was beautiful, but that thought quickly left her mind once she looked ahead of her, her jaw dropping.

It was huge. No, huge was definitely an understatement. There was a large plaza in front of it, where people mingled in the sunlight. It was some sort of church, Esther knew that much. But to describe it with words seemed unfitting. It was too beautiful and massive for her petty vocabulary.

"The Milan Cathedral," Tres said from beside her, making her jump and look away from it for only a moment. "The Duomo. It took almost 600 years to build, and can hold up to 40,000 people. Late Gothic style, elements belonging to Romanesque tradition. The third largest in the world. Breathtaking indeed."

And that was the first time Esther heard Tres talking to himself in such a way.

"Tres-kun," she murmured under her breath. "Could we… go inside? I want to pray in there. For guidance and protection!" She threw a million dollar smile at him. "I've never been inside a church so large! Please, can we?"

"Of course." After all, Tres would never be able to say no to her.

So inside the massive church they went. The hall extended for what seemed like forever. The ceiling was supported with beams thicker than her by at least 100 times. Her heels clacked loudly on the floor as she entered the chapel. Only a few people were there, scattered about and all with their heads bowed, hands clasped around their rosaries.

So, Esther put herself on one of those pews, clasped her own hands around her rosary, and began to pray.

'Good Lord, please watch over Father Nightroad as he perform his duties in your name in Krakow. I trust he will come back safe with your guidance. Also, watch over Tres and I as we preform our duties in your name in Letetia. I know we'll be able to help these people in the name of you, Lord. …but moreover, watch over Tres as he goes through these changes. He has changed so much in the past months, become freer than I have ever seen him. I pray you help him in his times of need when I cannot, or when I am not there. Or for when he is too stubborn to admit he needs it. Tres is a very dear friend of mine, and we have become even closer than before. He is kind, Lord. But he is confused and inexperienced. Please, give me the strength I need to help him become more human.'

She opened her eyes, looking up at the Killing Doll beside her. He wasn't looking at her; instead, his eyes were frontward. But she smiled at his profile, loving the way the light made his brown hair pale, more of a butterscotch color now.

'Yes, please watch over him forever. Amen.'


	15. Chapter 15

The more northward the two of them travelled, the colder it seemed to get. When the wind wasn't blowing, it was fine. But a storm seemed to be coming in from the east, and the winds were unforgiving.

Esther pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, realizing she could see her breath a little bit. Tres, walking just in front of her, didn't seem to mind the cold. He wouldn't have to, because he's an android, she reminded herself.

Her fingers felt like they were frozen around the edges of her cloak and her toes were numb in her shoes. She had to keep her jaw clenched to prevent her teeth from chattering.

It wasn't dark yet, so they wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. And they rightfully couldn't. The Kingdom of Franc was a dangerous place to be at night. Well, really anywhere was, but Franc especially so.

"T-Tres?" Esther said aloud, cursing herself for shivering and stuttering his name. He stopped and turned back to look at her, and his amber eyes made her shiver, but for an entirely different reason. "How long 'till we get to Letetia?"

"Another two hours," he answered, and she watched him tilt his head (like a little doggie…). "Esther, are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Tres," she said, sniffling. Dang. Her nose was running. "I'm just tired and bit chilled by the wind. We can keep going."

So she began walking again, moving past him. The sooner they got to Letetia, the sooner they got a warm bed and cover from the wind. Esther nearly swooned at the image of it.

Then, she felt Tres's hand on her shoulder. Opening her eyes, she looked to see what he wanted, but he didn't meet her eyes. "Here," he murmured, and pulled his cape around her shoulders. He even clipped in the front for her.

Contrary to what she had thought (that the cape would be cold because he didn't generate body heat), it was actually pleasantly warm. And when they had begun walking again (her still bemused at his act of thoughtfulness), she pulled the hem of it to her nose.

It smelled like Rome. Like the sea breeze coming in from the west and traveling along with the river. It smelled like the rain on the cobblestone walkways on a warm day. But there was something else there. Something that smelled like sandalwood and a slight bit of oil.

Esther's cheeks warmed. So that's what you smell like… she thought, her smile gentle.

They continued on for a while longer, Esther calling for him to wait for her and Tres waiting until she was beside him to continue walking again, until the rain began to come down.

"Oh, no… come on…" she grumbled under her breath, pulling Tres's cape over her head. It would get wet, and so would her robe and she'd be cold again.

"Sister Esther." She scowled at the sky before she looked away. He nodded into the woods that surrounded them on all sides but one (forward), which Esther had avoided. It was mostly spruce pines, overlapping branches that made it impossible for light to get through.

That, and rain.

So they settled there, deciding to either wait until morning to continue, or until the rain stopped. Whichever came sooner. Tres made a fire faster than she could ask him to, and she took off her boots to warm her toes.

When Esther heard thunder roll, she knew they'd be there until morning. And so did Tres, but neither of them minded. Esther because she didn't want to walk and be cold anymore, Tres because he didn't want to make Esther go through that at the moment.

So the two of them sat by the fire, Esther telling stories of when she and the other children in Istvan used to go camping. Camping as in sitting just outside the church in a makeshift tent within the courtyard.

Tres listened as Esther told him of a boy name's Killan, who boasted he was strong enough to climb to the top of the tallest tree in the courtyard and back down against without falling. The nun laughed as she relayed how Bishop Vitez came out with warm cocoa for them and caught him. The Bishop was very kind and sweet normally, but if a child endangered themselves, she wasn't opposed to giving them a long-lashing.

And he felt at peace again, because she seemed happy. He didn't have a good enough grip on 'happy' to actually tell if that was what he was seeing, but he would have liked to think so. That she was happy, even so far from Rome.

She stopped momentarily, staring into the fire with a deep look in her eyes. He said nothing, merely waited to see if she would continue or not. Either was fine to him. The silence after a conversation was like the aftertaste of wine, though he only had Dr. Wordsworth's word for how that tasted. (He could only hope it tasted good.)

"Do you remember, as we were coming back to Rome the first time, when we went into those woods?" Tres looked to where the girl sat beside him, wondering what she was getting at. Did she think they would get attacked here?

"Of course." He couldn't forget. Not unless the memory was deleted or omitted.

"When you went to check the woods, I asked Father Nightroad why you seemed to be in such a bad mood. He told me it was because half of you is always in Rome, where your home was." Her blue eyes looked up into his then, and he was shocked and saddened to see tears in those eyes.

"Do you miss your home, Tres?" Her voice was thick with sadness and longing. The tears in her eyes spilled over, dripping onto his cape, which was bundled around her. Before he could begin to think of an answer, she continued.

"Every day… I think of what could have been different… if I had made a different choice…" she mumbled, sniffling every few moments and keeping her head down. "If I had never trusted Dietrich in the first place. If I hadn't decided to go out and carry those chemicals and have never met Father Nightroad! Maybe it wouldn't be so bad now!"

Tres's eyes widened as she threw herself into his chest, nearly toppling him over. If he could have blushed, he would have at that moment. Comfort. She was looking for him to comfort her. That made him uneasy. What if he did it wrong?

He put his arms hesitantly around her, then more surely after a moment. "Esther…" he sighed, knowing she was at least listening. "I'm not good with words, and I'm not good with emotions just yet, so… this might sound amateur." She didn't acknowledge his words, but he knew she heard.

"I read somewhere that you shouldn't cry because it is over, but you should smile because it happened. You may have lost Bishop Vitez, and I understand that her loss will forever hurt you. She was like a mother to you. And even though Dietrich may have betrayed you, you are still here, breathing. You lived through it. And coming to Rome, you have gained new friends. You have gained Dr. Wordsworth, however strange he may be, and Father Nightroad and Father Leon, though the man lives to annoy us all."

The sarcasm in his voice at that last bit made her look up into his as he spoke. "And as a part of AX, you can assist Caterina-sama in her mission to bring peace between humans and the Methuselah. You're doing more now than you ever were. …every great building was one a picture, and every brave warrior was once a defenseless baby. It's not a matter of where you are today, but where you'll be tomorrow."

Her blue eyes widened for the longest time, and then she pulled herself up only to wrap her arms tightly around his neck. He was stunned still for a moment, then returned the rather sudden embrace, albeit awkwardly. Tres wasn't used to much physical contact, let alone like this.

"Thank you," she murmured, her lips brushing the shell of his right ear. He suppressed a shiver. "Thank you so much, Tres…"

If Tres had a heart, it probably would have skipped a beat.

The rain came down a little harder from where the two of them were safe and hidden away, creating a sort of lullaby for Esther as she fell asleep. She had curled up with his cape over her, and he pulled it more securely over her shoulder after a couple of moments. Her head lay in his lap, and he resisted the urge to run his fingers through her hair.

"Good night, Tres," she murmured, her eyes still closed. As a result, she missed his smile.

"Goodnight, Esther," he said back, watching with interest how the fire light played with the beauty of her features. After a long while, he finally worked up the courage to brush her hair behind her ear.

"I don't miss home," he whispered down at her in response to her earlier question. The Killing Doll smiled again, genially, at the girl in his lap once he was sure she was asleep.

"Because my home is wherever you are…"


	16. Chapter 16

When Esther managed to pry her eyes open, she realized, in some part of her groggy mind, that it was morning. She could see weak sunlight filtering through the trees, dappling on the grass.

She sat up, realizing she wasn't lying in Tres's lap anymore, unlike she had been last night. Her cheeks flushed when she remembered the dream she had had.

In her dream, she and Tres were sitting on a beach somewhere, and she was resting comfortably in his lap.

The sun was setting, and it was a gorgeous view. Tres was smiling down at her, his fingers running a calming course through her hair. It made her want to fall asleep.

"I don't miss home," Tres had murmured to her. "I had once, wishing I could go back to the days where everything was easy, other than training. But I don't want to."

"Why?" she had asked, her voice a mere whisper.

"Because," he responded. And his smile widened. "You are my home now."

As she remembered that, she over what a strange dream that was. Why would she think of something as ridiculous as that? Tres didn't lo… like her that way. And besides, he probably didn't even know what liking someone that way meant.

Nevertheless, the memory of the dream, which was incredibly vivid, left her flustered and confused.

Sighing exaggeratedly, she sat up and stretched. For a moment, she thought over why her knee was itching so terribly bad, and then she saw Tres. He was sitting nearby, putting his gun back together. He had probably been cleaning it, since that was what he typically did when he got bored.

After covering the embers of the fire with a thick layer of dirt to prevent it from catching again, they began north again. They weren't too far from Letetia, and making it there before noon was their goal. Esther couldn't see the sun for the clouds, and only when they thinned could she see its halo burning through.

Though the clouds far above them moved twice the speed of a train, there was no wind blowing across the moor. Esther was grateful, but no matter what she said, Tres refused to take his cloak back. He insisted she needed more than him, and Esther was, deep down, grateful. She offered to give back his cloak only because she was afraid she would seem needy, but his denial made sure she wouldn't be cold (because it really was still quite nippy…)

They walked in silence for much of the journey, only Esther casually asking questions breaking the silence. But the silence was broken by something other than her voice when they reached the top of the hill they had climbed up.

It sounded like a faint roar or a drizzling mist, and when Esther found its source, she was stunned.

She had been skeptical of Caterina's statement "it always rained" in the village. But now, she knew the Cardinal had been right, and that the town could indeed be cursed. The entire town had a wall built from clay and brick and little pieces of rock clustered together to form it. That border seemed to extend up into a thick cloud, dark as night and pouring rain, only hung over the town.

They stood in silence for a long while, Esther once again offered him his cloak (if only to keep dry), Tres denied, and they followed the half-cobblestone-half-dirt road to the towns walls.

The church was in the midst of the city, within the crossing of the two main streets, and a straight beeline from the entrance of the city. Esther pulled her hood and cloaks around her tightly before they stepped into the rain, and she became instantly soaked and cold.

I hope the Bishop has beds for us ready, she thought, shivering. Goosebumps rose on her arms. I need a warm bed and dry habit…

As Esther walked down the main street, she looked up and around for any sign of people. At first, it seemed like the town had been completely abandoned, but then she saw shutters being snapped shut and small children occasionally peering out. She would smile their way and raise her fingers in a slight wave, attempting to be friendly, but they disappeared each time.

It's like they're afraid of us…

The church was in the center of the city, like Esther and Tres had been told. It was in a state of disrepair, like much of the rest of the buildings they had seen. Missing chunks from the roof and walls, patched clumsily with wooden planks. Windows busted out and boarded up. Weeds had grown up just about everywhere.

But Esther knocked on the heavy oaken door and waited, shivering uncontrollably. Her teeth chattered and her knees clacked together. And when she glanced up at Tres under her eyelashes, she felt instant pity for him. Water dripped off the tapered ends of his hair, the spiked peaks smoothed down by the water.

I should have forced him to take the stupid cloak… Esther grumbled internally.

The sound of a lock being undone caught her attention back. The door creaked open on rusty hinges, and there stood a petite, thin woman. It was the Bishop they had been notified of meeting.

She was short and thin, her blonde hair falling in curls all down her back and shoulders. Her brilliant green eyes shown out at them, wide as an owl and blinking like a hummingbird.

"Oh!" she gasped. "You're from the AX! Come in, come in, please!" The Bishop moved aside and ushered them in with a waving hand. "I was expecting you last night. I got so worried."

Tres watched as she closed the door and slid the lock closed again before speaking. "We got held up by the rain," he answered. "We stopped in the forest to rest and wait it out."

"Ah, I see," the Bishop said, smiling gently. "Something you'll have to get used to if you want to survive in this town now. We have to rely on imports of fish from the bay to survive instead of our own crops." She looked so dejected when she said that.

"I understand," Tres nodded. "And that's why we're here. To figure out why and restore this city to its normal self-reliance."

The Bishop smiled, her green eyes softening. (Her green eyes reminded him of something, but what, he couldn't quite reach…) "May God bless you in your coming trials, Priest," she said, bowing slightly. "And we haven't been introduced. I'm Bishop Linda."

"I'm Sister Esther Blanchett and this is Father Tres Iqus," Esther introduced, smiling as she did. Despite having only just met Bishop Linda, she found her aura calming and peaceful. Her smile and her eyes were soft and kind, just as Bishop Vitez's had been…

"It's nice to meet the both of you," she responded, and grabbed her lantern. "I'll take the both of you to your room. Due to Methuselah attacks, the church had been heavily damaged, along with most of the city, so you'll have to share a room until repairs are done."

"That's fine," Esther hurriedly replied. She didn't mind sharing a room with Tres. In fact, that was the opposite of a problem…

Esther loved how peaceful Tres looked when he slept. She would never tell him, but he liked to lay on his side and curl up into a ball like a cat. He looked like a little baby! And moreover, she was glad he was willing to trust her to see that moment of defenselessness.

"Here you are." Bishop Linda's voice broke her thoughts suddenly. She looked up to see a room with two beds, a large window in one wall and two dressers, and a table in the corner. Cozy!

"Towels are in the chests at the end of the beds," Bishop Linda said, lighting the lantern beside the door. "Dry up, get warm, and then we can talk over lunch."

Esther and Tres thanked her, and when she left, Esther took off her soaked cloaks. They would need to be hung outside or dried by a fire or they would mold. After hanging them on the hooks on the wall, she opened the chest in front of her bed and drug out a towel.

Esther glanced over at Tres, who was sitting at the table, taking his guns from the clips of his belt. She thought she heard him grumbling about them rusting, but she couldn't be too sure. Going up behind him, she unfolded the towel and plopped it down on his head.

"You need to dry yourself off, Tres," she said gently, laughing at the surprise in his eyes when he looked up at her. "It wouldn't do to have you rust, too." He sat there silently as she toweled his hair dry, and as she laughed at how mussed up it was.

So she ran her fingers through it, combing it out softly. There was no sound other than the rain pounding on the roof and splashing in the puddles on the streets. Neither of them said anything, merely enjoyed the comfortable silence that existed between them. Even when she didn't need to anymore, she still combed through his hair, but she didn't really know why.

Maybe it was because she loved how soft it was. It was like down on the inside of a pillow. If she could, she would like to do this forever. Or maybe it was because she merely wanted an excuse to touch him. These little moments of contact with him were something Esther treasured.

That thought made her blush, even more so when she remembered her dream…

"Esther?" She jumped a little bit when he spoke her name. "Do you really think we'll be able to help this town?"

He spoke very softly, and she could hear within his tone that he was doubting himself. Doubting his ability to do anything adequately anymore. And no matter how many times she told him that was wrong, that probably wouldn't change. That made Esther sad.

So she wrapped her arms around him and hugged him from behind the best she could. It was the first time in a long time she had hugged him at all. And with her mouth near his ear, she whispered to him.

"Tres, I know, with you, everything will be okay…"


	17. Chapter 17

 

It took a while for Esther to get her hair dried, even after she got her dry habit on, and even longer to get warm. Tres refused to change his clothes, saying they'd be dry soon enough.  _Stupid, stubborn android,_ she thought, playfully.  _I wish he could get sick just so he'd learn his lesson._ And then she immediately berated herself for that thought.

Bishop Linda was down in the main dining area in the back of the church when they found her. She had lit more candles and cleaned up the wax from underneath them, and had used the last of the firewood she had in the box to build a fire in the kitchen.

"Soon, the men will have to go out and get more wood," she said, brushing wood pieces from her habit. "I swear, if this rain doesn't let up, this town will be run straight into the muddy ground."

"That's why we're here, Bishop Linda," Esther said, sitting at the table. "Now, tell us how this all started." The Bishop sat the candlestick on the table and sat across from Esther (while Tres preferred to stand), and sighed.

"I've only been in this city for six years," she said. "I came here from Albion after my mother died, leaving my sister and her husband behind. She was the only family I had left, but I couldn't stand being there anymore. With all the memories and whatnot. Especially of my brother. A good man who died, much too young.

"But anyway," she waved her hand quickly. "I first got to this city when everything was calm and peaceful. Everyone knew everyone, everyone helped everyone. Very close-knit community. They welcomed me with open arms and happy smiles. But a year ago, we found one of our own, a little teenage girl, dead in the street with all the blood gone from her. A Methuselah had attacked, and there was no evidence as to why or how no one had noticed before morning. And people were so paranoid about Methuselah attacking them in the night that people started blaming their neighbors for the attacks. Saying they welcomed the Methuselah into their town because of some grudge they held. It started foolishly. One man blamed his wife because she didn't want to cook his dinner one night. A brother blamed his elder sister because she snuck out at night, even though she was actually seeing a boy without her parents' permission.

"So everyone blamed everyone else, and a once close knit community turned against itself. No one comes to church anymore except for a few of the elders, and even then, they don't come together. It's sad to see, really. And in the last year, more Methuselah attacks began happening, so people would just stay inside whenever possible. They didn't want to die. And I can't blame them. But after the last attack, it began raining and just didn't stop. And now there's no food, no firewood, Methuselah attacks and non-stop rain."

She stopped talking then, her eyes sad. "It's horrible to see that. And there's nothing I can do to help. In the beginning, I tried to hold everyone together by having get-togethers in the church, and it worked for a while, but when the attacks became more frequent, they didn't work at all."

Esther smiled comfortingly at the Bishop. "You don't have to worry about that anymore," she said. "Tres and I will figure out the cause of all this, bring down the Methuselah and make this town as close as it once was."

The Bishop's wide green eyes kept her blue ones for the longest time, and then she smiled, bowing her head. "Thank you, Sister Esther," she whispered. "And you too, Father Tres, for coming all this way to help us."

And with that, they (Esther and Bishop Linda) ate their lunch and Tres went off to inspect the perimeter of the town. His first suspicion was that the outer wall had been layered with this supposed curse. It had to be some sort of dark magic, otherwise the rain would extend beyond the city limits.

He came out the way they had come in, circling around most of the wall looking for runes or markings that could signify a curse. Even though he was incredibly thorough, he saw nothing out of the ordinary, just piles of bricks layered with cement. While he went, he realized the suspicion of the towns people the Methuselah was among them now. The nearest town was almost eight kilometers (five miles) away, and nothing but rolling hills stretched between the two cities.

_Nowhere for them to hide, and no reason would a Methuselah come from a town far off to feast here. And this has been reoccurring, so it might be the same one,_ Tres thought.  _I'll have to see if I can examine the corpses to see any similarities in the attacks. No… I'm pretty sure they bury their dead. It would be disrespectful to dig up their graves._

He noticed that the sun was beginning to set, and decided it would be best to go back into the city. It would be easier to watch the streets at night, when most people would be sleeping. Well, except for the culprit. Hopefully he could catch him before anyone else got hurt.

Esther was seemingly waiting for him to come back. She was waiting inside the chapel when he opened the doors, pulling the locks in behind him. Being in the center of the town, hopefully the top of the church had a good vantage point.

"Did you find anything?" she asked him softly, crossing her arms over her habit.

"I didn't," Tres answered. "Nothing out of the ordinary. The wall doesn't have any runes or visible spell marks to suggest a curse. But I do think the citizens are right, that the Methuselah is in the town. The nearest city is eight kilometers north, and it's just a fishing port. Not heavily populated. And there are no forests or buildings in that stretch of land for them to hide in. It doesn't seem feasible that a Methuselah would trek that far for a midnight snack."

"So the Methuselah really is in the town, is that right?" Esther repeated softly, and Tres merely nodded silently. The Methuselah was in the city, and limited contact with the citizens meant it would be difficult finding out who it was exactly.

"Bishop Linda has already gone to bed," Esther said, breaking the retrospective silence they'd shared. "I suggest we go, too. Real work starts tomorrow."

After locking up the doors and the windows, the two of them left the main chapel in favor of their room. Esther changed into her nightgown behind the divider, crawling into her cold bed and hoping it would warm up quickly. She listened to Tres remove his guns and turn their safeties on (except for one of them, which he kept close at hand in case of an emergency), and take most of his clothes off.

_Most of his clothes off… listen at you, Esther, thinking like a preteen school girl in some male brothel fantasy dream._ Her face lit up like a light bulb.  _No, don't think those things either, stupid, stupid!_ She covered her head with her blankets and waited until she heard Tres get into bed before she spoke. Poking her head out from under her hot blankets to the cool air of the room, she said, "Goodnight, Tres."

"Goodnight, Esther," he said back to her softly.

Even though the beds were the most comfortable thing she'd slept on in days, it didn't prevent her from staying awake with thoughts running rampant in her head. Like Bishop Linda and Bishop Vitez, and the Methuselah and the teenage girl. Like the rain and the cold air hopefully going to warm up soon.

And, as her mind began getting fuzzy with sleep…

Of Tres and the way he smiled. Like it was a special secret reserved just for her. And his books. The Fatal Crown and the Great Gatsby and the Count of Monte Cristo and a Tale of Two Cities. And imagining him as a knight in shining armor, saving her from Methuselah attack and kissi-

No, wait. Where in the world did that come from? No, Tres? Kissing her? That just seemed so… foreign. And after her dream the night previous, she was blushing so red she was putting a tomato to shame. She was pretty sure Tres was awake, but she didn't want to say anything. Besides, what would she say? Nothing seemed appropriate, because everything she wanted to say was foolish and just plain odd.

But that still didn't stop her from trying. "Tres?" she whispered softly, and then a little louder. He hummed his response. Right, so he was awake. "Uh… I, well… never mind."

She heard him move in his bed. "What is it, Esther?" he asked, and she blushed a little more at the way he said her name.

"I can't sleep," she said, burying her face into her pillow. After sighing heavily, she continued. "I want to, but I just can't, you know? ...will you, well, tell me a story?"

"What kind of story?" Of course he wouldn't refuse. Tres is too nice to refuse.

"I don't know," she whispered. "You've read a hundred books. Just tell me a story… and make sure it has a happy ending. I like happy endings…"  _Gosh, you sound like a child._

She swore she heard Tres's smile in his voice as he spoke. "Well…" he sighed, and she settled back down. "Once, a long time ago…"

Esther listened to Tres's smooth, calming voice until she fell asleep. She dreamed again of her and Tres on the beach, but this time, she smiled up at him.

" _I love you, Tres-kun."_


	18. Chapter 18

 

It was mutually decided that Esther would be the one going door to door trying to get information from the citizens on their experiences since the Methuselah attacks had begun. After all, she was better with words and comforting people who needed it. Tres knew this from experience.

Tres, in the meantime, would be examining bodies of the recent victims that were stored in the morgue. Upon asking Bishop Linda, he had found that, ever since Priest Stephen L'evile had died of pneumonia, there had been no able bodied men willing to bury anyone. Meaning there were three victims he could examine. Plenty enough to create a link in attacks. And Esther had refused to do this because the idea of being anywhere near dead people, let alone doing an autopsy, would make her lose her breakfast.

Esther decided she would begin at the diner that was down the street. It was always open, but whether anyone actually went there or not was beyond her knowledge. After getting on a clean habit and pulling the hood of her cloak over her head, she stepped outside into the rain. Though it hadn't stopped, she noticed it had lessened in intensity.

The diner didn't have many people inside it, like she had predicted. And the few that were there were spaced far apart. An old man here, a young man there, a middle-aged woman on the other side of the bar. She seemed to be the barkeep, and thus could be an information source.

Putting her hood down, she made her way to the bar and stood, waiting for the black-haired woman to notice her. When she did, her cold steel eyes looked Esther up and down, narrowed, and then she placed the glass down on the bar with a loud bang.

"Nun, huh?" she said, scoffing. "Gonna catch that vamp that that idiot mayor let in?"

Esther smiled, somewhat self-conscious all of a sudden. "That's our plan," she answered honestly. "My partner, Father Tres Iqus, and I are here to try and free the town of the curse it's under. I'm Sister Esther Blanchett, from Rome."

Now she had this woman's attention. "I'm Jezebel," the woman said. "Most people call me Jezzie. I'm guessin' you want to know about the Methuselah, huh?"

Esther nodded. "I'm going to go around and see whether or not I can pinpoint where the Methuselah is. The way I've heard, it seems everyone blames someone for welcoming the Methuselah into the town. I want to see your side of the story."

As Esther spoke, Jezebel poured herself a shot of whiskey and downed it quickly. "Well, I say it's all the mayor's fault," she said, leaning up against the bar. "It all started with tales of him cheatin' on his wife and cheatin' people out of their money. He didn't like the idea of being elected out, so tried to control the town through fear. Had bodyguards whose backgrounds were as shady as a cave. After the first murder, he up and left town in the middle of the night. Left his wife and kid here, and she died of disease soon enough, while his son got killed by the Methuselah. Word was he started making deals with vamps to ensure his safety from us, the citizens he was supposed to govern." She scoffed. "I say it's his fault the vamps showed here in the first place, stupid coward."

Esther thanked her, and made a mental note to ask Bishop Linda if she knew anything about the company the mayor kept.

Meanwhile, Tres was in the morgue, the three bodies laid out in front of him. Two women and a male. He noted all the visual similarities he could see.  _They all have different hair color, and they aren't of the same gender or age group, so it doesn't seem this Methuselah has a particular preference,_ he noted.  _The fang marks are all on the right side, pretty low on the neck. Either the Methuselah prefers that area or they're shorter than their victims._

The only real similarity he saw was that they were all relatively close in height, with a difference of only two or three inches.  _Either they're in the range of five-foot-four to five-foot-seven, or it is a preference._

He sighed. Now then… He'd have to cut their necks open and see whether the Methuselah was focusing on the internal jugular of each victim. He pulled off his gloves and rolled up his sleeves, grabbing a scalpel and splitting open the platysma muscle and the sternal head of the sternocleidomastoid muscle. And there lay the jugular, indeed damaged on the first victim. But on the second and the third, this pattern didn't follow. The second had been hit in the transverse cervical, and the third had only died through general blood loss.

So the last one was bitten, but the Methuselah didn't drink his blood. Had it killed the man purely because he had been a witness to the murder of one of the girls? Or had he discovered who the Methuselah was, and where he was hiding?

There were really several possibilities, and at the moment, there wasn't any way for him to figure out exactly what he was looking for. Then again, he did have a definite height range. The town census should have that on file. So that was where he went next. Town Hall.

After dragging out all the records of the most recent census, which was only from a few months ago, he discovered there were only 153 people in this city. There used to be almost a thousand, but since the rain started it seemed they decided to evacuate.  _All the easier for us, then. Sadly._

After Esther finished going around the city, rudely getting doors slammed in her face and people telling her to get lost, she returned to the church. She didn't know when it had happened really, but it had gotten much colder in the last hour. And having her clothes wet didn't help her situation. She was really going to have to get an umbrella. She was stupid not to have brought one from Rome. Stupid, stupid, stupid…

So she went directly into the dining room, fully intending to sit by the fire and warm up. Esther was surprised to see Tres there with piles of papers on the table, looking at them with his eyebrows knitted. He didn't look up when she came in, and she supposed he didn't hear her.

"Tres," she said, and he looked up sharply. She didn't miss his hand immediately gravitate towards his gun, but stop when he realized who was there.

"Esther," he acknowledged, and he stood up after a moment and extended his hand out to her. "Come here, you're freezing."

"How'd you know that?" she said, sniffling and grabbing his hand. He pulled the chair he had been sitting in closer to the fire and made her sit down in it.

"Probably because your lips are blue and you're shaking like a leaf," he told her. And really, she was. She had to clench her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering and her arms had goose bumps. Occasionally, a shiver would run down her spine. She stared into the fire, rubbing her arms hoping to get warm quickly.

Esther jumped slightly when she felt something slightly heavy and warm settle down on her shoulders. It was a quilt, and Tres was the one who put it there. "That should warm you up," he said softly, and smiled down at her. Esther got a shiver down her spine again, but for an entirely different reason. She smiled back up at him, happy for this calm moment between them. She would call this the calm before the storm, except she had no idea what exactly was going to come next.

When he sat beside her, she leaned against his shoulder, staring into the fire and feeling completely at peace. She didn't tell him anything she had discovered that day, and he didn't either, at least, not right then. Neither of them wanted to disturb the moment.

"Tres-kun," she whispered softly, and he hummed in reply. "Thank you." And she quickly stretched up to kiss him on the cheek. Her face immediately burned red and she buried her face into his arm.

_Oh my good Lord, I cannot believe I had the courage to do that…_ she thought to herself.  _Oh geez… oh geez…_

"Esther?" Tres asked quietly, and Esther flushed some more. "Why did you do that?" His words were totally derived of any emotion; she couldn't tell what he was thinking. And she didn't know what she was thinking, either. The words that came out of her mouth next didn't even seem like hers. Like words from a dream…

"Because…" she murmured. "I love you, Tres-kun."


	19. Chapter 19

If Tres had a heart, it probably would have stopped.

More than once he had pondered over the idea of 'love' – no, more of the feeling, the state of being in love – and had come to the conclusion that it was a rare thing. Not everyone got to experience the feeling of love in their lifetimes, no matter how long they might live. And he had thought even more so, on how he felt towards Esther. Sure, her company was something he missed when they were apart and relished when they were together, but was that love?

Was love missing someone even when they were in the next room? Was love constantly fretting over that person's safety, even waking in the middle of the night, just to make sure they were still there? Was love wanting nothing more than to be with that person, and be willing to do whatever it took to make them happy, even at the sacrifice of one's own well-being?

If it was, than Tres could say he was definitely deeply in love with Esther.

Even so, hearing the words that came out of her mouth, and feeling her lips pressed against his skin with the gentleness of an angel, was surreal, and he wondered whether or not he had fallen asleep. Everything fell into a silence that Tres came to recognize as an awkward one after she had spoken, and he realized he was supposed to say something.

But he had never been good with words, and had no clue where to even begin. He had heard the phrase actions speak louder than words, but he still was at a halt of what to do.

And another thing Tres found he didn't like. He did  _not_  like conflict.

So he did probably the dumbest thing in the world. He stood up and left the kitchen silent as a mouse, without taking his guns or a word of goodbye.

And Esther was left in silence, her stomach aching, tears in her eyes and heart crushed.

_I'm such an idiot,_ she thought, burying her face into her hands.

_I'm such an idiot,_ he thought, leaving the church in favor of the cold rain.

The next morning, it rained harder than the day before during the early hours, and Esther hadn't seen Tres come back at all last night. Bishop Linda said she was woken when she heard the door slam shut by the wind and had waited in the chapel for Tres to come back, but he had not reappeared.

Esther wasn't angry with him for running out like he had. She knew he was bad with words, and didn't know how to tell her 'I don't love you' in a way that was harsh. No, Esther was angry with herself, for thinking it would be a good idea to say something as stupid as she had. She hadn't eaten breakfast because her worried stomach wouldn't take it, but she had gone into the kitchen this morning to sit by the dying fire.

His guns were still on the table, exactly where he had left them last night. That was what made her worry in the beginning.  _What if he got attacked by the Methuselah and couldn't defend himself?_ Esther would theorize.  _What if he's dead, or dying somewhere, all alone?_

No matter how much she worried, Bishop Linda merely told her not to go looking for him.

"When it rains like this, no one gets attacked," she told her. "I suppose the Methuselah hates the rain just as much as we do." The Bishop sighed, stroking Esther's hair. "It will be okay, young one. He's only human, and humans do need time to think through things before they say or do anything they regret."

Esther laughed breathlessly. "Well, he's not exactly human, but I suppose the same rules apply." The Bishop gave her a confused look, and Esther's smile disappeared. "What is it?"

"Not exactly a human, you said…" Bishop Linda murmured. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, Caterina-sama didn't tell you?" Bishop Linda shook her head, her eyebrows knitting together. "Tres is a battle android. He was made by Professor Gepetto Garibaldi, I think his name was. He used to work with the Vatican, but he used the Killing Dolls to rebel against them. My friend, Father Nightroad, was the one who put the rebellion down. And after that, Tres was the only one left. So Caterina-sama saved him and he went to work with the AX."

Esther gasped aloud when Bishop Linda grabbed her shoulders and pulled her around, looking intensely into her blue eyes. "He's the third, isn't he?" the woman asked breathlessly. "The third Killing Doll?" Esther gaped like a fish out of water, but settled after a moment for nodding mutely. Bishop Linda immediately let go of her, looking as if she had been struck in the face. She whirled around and left the chapel so fast Esther barely had time to blink.

_What in God's holy name was that about?_

It was nearing lunch time when Tres did finally show up. The sun was barely peeking through the clouds and the rain had lessened to a mere sprinkle when Esther heard the door open. And as soon as her blue eyes met his amber ones, her face flushed and she got up to turn away. She wouldn't be able to speak. Everything was just too weird right now.

But she wasn't going to get away that easily. Of course she wasn't.

She felt his hand wrap around her wrist. "Esther," he said, she flushed heavily when she turned around, facing him, but still unable to meet his eyes. "I need to talk to you."  _Oh, sweet Lord… he's going to say it now, isn't he?_

"Tres, I'm sorry I said what I did," she said hurriedly, thinking he was angry at her. "I didn't mean to say it, it just kind of… came out. Just forget about it. It was stupid for me to do that." A long silence ensued and a buzzing filled her ears.

"Esther…" he sighed. "That isn't what I want to talk to you about…" His voice was gentle and sweet, and it made her look up and meet his eyes. Her heart leapt to her throat at the emotion she saw in his eyes. Now, even more so than ever before, Tres looked like a vulnerable, kicked puppy. He was worried and nervous and, dare she think it, scared.

The girl waited for him to say more, but he didn't, not for a long time. The only noise was the gentle tapping of rain on the few windows left. Esther was scared of what he  _did_ want to talk about, but wasn't willingly going to show it.

She almost jumped when he suddenly took her hands in his, and her blue eyes looked to where they met. Her face felt like it was on fire, her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest and her legs felt like jelly.

"I…" he began, but stopped, glancing away. "Well, you know I've never been good with words." And with that, Tres leaned in and kissed her.

Esther had never kissed anyone before (unless you count that one time she saved a little boy from drowning by giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which she certainly didn't…) and had never been kissed in all her life. But as a young girl, she supposed there were only so many ways to describe a kiss.

But she had never been so wrong before in her life.

Her mind should have pulled a blank, but surprisingly, it didn't. Instead, after she closed her eyes, her brain cataloged every minute detail in an instant, and it was details she would never forget.

The way his lips (which were  _way_  too soft to be possible) were pressed softly, hesitantly against her own until she eventually reciprocated. The way his hands eventually left hers in favor of placing one on her cheek and the other on her hips, and how her own wrapped around his neck and pulled him down closer to her.

And for Esther, it was over far too soon. She gasped in a quick breath when he pulled away. Opening her eyes, she looked into his eyes, which were warm amber. She didn't say anything, and neither did he, for a long while.

"I love you," he whispered then, and warmth filled her from head to toe. "I don't know how to say how I feel in any way other than that…"

Esther merely silenced him with another kiss, and then smiled. "That's all you need to say, Tres-kun," she replied softly. She nuzzled her face into his chest, holding on to him tight. "And I love you, too, Tres-kun."


	20. Chapter 20

Days had passed and neither one of them had discovered anything out of sorts. The rain and the hostile neighbors were becoming normal to the both of them, and Esther got used to bringing an umbrella wherever she went even if the rain wasn't hard when she left.

Tres would linger in the bell tower near the church most nights, listening and looking out for any sign of the Methuselah. Six nights of watching and waiting had gotten them nothing. This Methuselah was smart. He knew he was being watched.

Moreover, the relationship between Tres and Esther had gone from practically non-existent when she thought he was a member of Gyula's army, to a co-worker when they returned to Rome, to a friend when he saved her from the Ifrit (losing his sight as a result). And now an even deeper friend, a friend she trusted with not only her life, but her heart as well.

As a friend, Tres was perfect. He was the shoulder she could cry on when the day or week hadn't gone in her favor. He was the one who would listen when she needed to speak and get something off her chest. And as a… lover (since the word 'boyfriend' didn't seem right… their relationship was much more complicated and deeper than that), he was much the same.

But now, when she would have nightmares about Bishop Vitez and how it was "all her fault", he wasn't past allowing her to climb into his bed and holding her until she fell back asleep. And even if he wasn't there, if he was in the bell tower, he would still hear her and come when she needed him to.

Esther would still occasionally visit Jezzie to see if the woman had heard of anything new. Today she seemed sickly. Paler than normal, with rings under her eyes. Lack of sleep, she had said. She was an insomniac and the rain didn't help her complexion. When Esther asked why she never left the city, Jezzie had merely shrugged and said that this place, though not her home town, was the only place she had now.

Lately, since her nightmares were gone, Tres had nothing to do on the nights when the rain was coming down harder than ever. He was tired and wanted to sleep, but was too anxious for something to happen. The tension was like a rubber band, ready to snap. Everyday Tres felt as if something bad were about to happen, and if he wasn't paying close attention at every moment, someone would get hurt. He glanced over at Esther's sleeping form, blissfully hoping she was having good dreams, and an ache formed within him.

He definitely didn't want anyone to get hurt.

One thing he found he liked to do during those late nights was to go down to the chapel and sit for a while. He wouldn't pray, but merely relax, looking up at the cross somehow remaining intact throughout the years.

And another thing he found out: Bishop Linda was an early riser.

Bishop Linda had been avoiding him these past few days. When he saw her, even for a fleeting moment, sadness and panic and  _fear_ (why was that there?) would cross her face and she would rush away, mumbling that she needed to do something.

And now, she entered the chapel and saw him in there, and he expected her to rush off again. Surprisingly, she didn't. His amber gaze met her green ones evenly, and she let out a hefty sigh before approaching him.

She sat on the same pew as he, granted a few feet away. Tres gathered she wanted to say something, but was struggling with the words. So he waited, watching her profile.

"You know, before I came to Letetia, I lived in Albion," she said softly, something Tres recognized as wonder in her voice. "It was a cute little house, with my mother, my sister and my big brother." Her green eyes met his suddenly, and he was surprised to see tears in them. "I loved my brother. He was always so strong and caring and kind. Our father died when we were young, so he took the role of a father figure."

She paused there, and he wanted to ask her why she was telling him this, but didn't dare open his mouth.

"Whenever I was five, my brother was drafted into the Albion military. We didn't want him to leave, and he didn't want to go either. And I didn't see him again until I was nine. He was a General in the army. We were all so proud of him. But when I was ten, the house we were living in was set on fire."

Tres had already connected all the points she was giving him. He closed his eyes, feeling completely stuck. He didn't know what to say, or what to feel.

"He got hurt, really badly, saving my sister and me. Mum was working at the hospital when it happened." At this point, her voice was shaking. "He was suffocating on the smoke and a beam fell on him when the house collapsed. And… he died, two days later. It was awful, he couldn't breathe and he was in just so much pain. I was terribly sad at first, but in the years that followed, I realize I'm glad he didn't have to suffer anymore."

Her gaze was like spots of fire on his face and that was how he knew she was looking at him. So he returned her gaze.

"His body was given to a professor from the Vatican in Rome. His name was-"

"Gepetto Garibaldi," Tres finished for her, nodding calmly. "My creator." He sighed. "Your brother's body was used to create me. Your assumption is right, and I really don't know whether to say 'I'm sorry' or 'Hello'. I don't have your brother's memories, just his brain. His emotions." He bit his lip, a nervous habit of his. "I hesitate to even call them mine." Neither of them spoke for a long time, and it was incredibly tense. Tres didn't know what more to say, and Bishop Linda –  _his sister,_ some part of him hissed – didn't say anything either.

"Hello…" the Bishop breathed, almost quieter than he could hear.

"Pardon?"

"You're supposed to say 'Hello', Tres," Bishop Linda said, smiling at him. "You may not remember, but… Well, I really don't know how to describe it." She laughed nervously, scratching her neck. "I just… you feel like my brother. You act like my brother. The same quiet type of person who would do anything for the people they love. My head can't describe it, but my heart knows."

Tres met her calming green eyes for a long while, seeing the little girl in that picture reflected there. He huffed a sigh and smiled. "Hello, Linda," he said. "It's nice to see you again."

And Bishop Linda had to excuse herself before she burst into tears.

Esther woke later and came into the chapel. She rubbed her eyes sleepily as she sat beside him, snuggling into his chest. He kissed her on the top of the head gently, smiling into her hair. "Why were you grinning like an idiot when I came in?" she asked softly. He put his arm around her waist.

"I found somebody," he answered simply. "Or, really, who I used to be found somebody they had been trying to find for a long time."

"Alexander Braddock?"

"Mhm." He proceeded to tell her what had just occurred, and she smiled like an idiot, too, before she kissed him.

That night, Tres proceeded to go to the rooftop again, since the rain had begun to lessen. The Methuselah hadn't eaten in weeks. They were bound to make their move soon. From now on, he needed to be on watch.

He kept his guns out and his heat-tracer on, scanning the town, which was completely silent save for the pitter of the rain. The moon was barely visible through the thinning clouds and had he not known better, he would have thought the rain would have stopped. It was extremely peaceful at this hour, and though he couldn't see the stars, the night was beautiful.

He whirled around as he heard footsteps on tile roofing. He just barely caught the heat signature of a figure running across the roof of a building just across the street.

_The Methuselah._

Tres jumped from the bell tower to the roof, skidding down the tile to jump from it to the building across from it. This Methuselah was fast. He would have to be faster.

He only caught a few minor details about the Methuselah. It had long black hair and a thin frame.  _A woman._ A woman who momentarily lost her balance, allowing him to gain a few feet on her. He aimed his gun and fired, his perfect shot missing as the Methuselah used haste to move merely inches from its path. It didn't hit her flesh, but rather tore at the edge of her clothing.

_Good enough,_ Tres huffed, as he watched the Methuselah grip her upper arm in pain and hiss. Tres hated when he missed, as it was imperative to himself personally, to hit his mark dead on. And if he had, the Methuselah would already be in his custody and the town would be free of its killing spree.

That thought made him angry and made him run faster. The woman jumped from the roof and landed haphazardly on the ground, rolling to spare herself a broken bone. Tres went after her still, the suspension in his ankles and knees sparing that time costly maneuver. He fired another shot, and she used haste again to separate herself from the silver bullet's path.

_I will catch her,_ he swore.  _I'll catch her if it's the last thing I do._  God, why was he so angry? Never before had he felt such primitive rage. It scratched up at him with poison claws and made him want to make this Methuselah suffer. He wanted her to feel the pain and fear her victims had.

Was she afraid? At this moment, was she fearing for her life or was she merely having fun making him chase her? The thought that he was being toyed with just made it worse. The objective was to bring her in unharmed for trial in Rome, so Tres couldn't aim to kill. He had to aim for her knees, shoulders and elbows. Only to inhibit her movement, not to kill her.

The Methuselah turned the corner, and he was shocked to see where they were. She was heading straight for the church. Straight towards his 'sister' and Esther.

He pulled out his other gun, which was loaded with regular lead bullets baptized in holy water. He wouldn't let her get to the church. He would take her down right here.

He immediately screeched to a halt and fired three shots.

The first hit her calf, and she stumbled, causing the next to miss. The third hit her shoulder, knocking her forward. A cry of pain came from her, and he felt sick pride fill him.  _Don't be prideful for hurting people, Tres,_ he told himself.

But just as quickly, the Methuselah was moving again. How had she recovered that quickly?  _Easily, she can heal herself quicker than other Methuselah._ Well then. He fired another shot, aimed now at the ankle of her uninjured leg. It missed completely.

It missed not because she used haste, but because she was completely gone. Not even a footprint or heat signature left of her. Tres lowered his gun. How had she disappeared that quickly? Haste wasn't teleportation. No matter how fast it was to a human Tres could see them merely moving at an accelerated rate. He would have been able to follow the haste easily.

But this Methuselah, this woman was gone. Not a single trace of her existence other than some blood on the ground and the bullet casings on the ground.

Esther had been awoken by the gunfire, so she rushed outside with her cloak over her nightgown. She lingered on the stairs leading up to the porch as Tres came up to her, feeling as though the Methuselah's eyes bore down on him like branding irons the entire way.

The next morning, a child was found dead in the streets. Bishop Linda had been notified early that morning, before the sun had risen. Bishop Linda thanked the man, who was the mortician, and she had solemnly informed Tres and Esther of the occurrence.

Esther watched as Tres sank down into the wooden chair at the table, his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He was distraught, that much was easy to see. Closing the door, she dragged the other chair beside him and sat in it, pulling him into her arms.

"It's my fault…" he whispered, so softly she had to strain to hear. "It's all my damn fault…"

Much like how Esther blamed herself for the death of Bishop Vitez, Tres now blamed himself for every death that occurred in this cursed city while he was in it.


	21. Chapter 21

Tres had insisted on digging the grave. Bishop Linda said she would take care of it, but he wouldn't let her get anywhere near the shovel. Last night was the first time in a while that Esther had seen Tres truly distraught. The last time had to have been months ago in the library back in Rome. Oh, how far away it all seemed, how long ago.

He told her he should have just shot her when he had the chance. If he had just hit her in the back at the very beginning, this wouldn't have happened. A little boy wouldn't be dead and his mother wouldn't be grieving. He wished he could, just once, have the courage to defy his orders. He wished he could have just  _killed_ her.

Today was the first day Esther had seen Tres wear normal clothes. In fact, the only thing he still wore from his uniform was his boots. He wore a dark grey shirt with sleeves that cut off just at his elbow and grey pants he kept tucked into his boots. The belt he always wore with the hostlers for his guns was ever present. It was weird, seeing him look so human. And after knowing him for so long and only seeing him in AX uniform, it was definitely strange.

The rain was ruthless today, but Tres didn't care. He was a pluviophile by now. The graveyard was a good ways from the main square, and he looked with disdain at the bloodstain on the ground as he passed by.

_Stupid idiot,_ he cursed himself.  _Why didn't you kill her when you had the chance?_

He knew this Methuselah woman was fast. She could use haste more times in a few minutes than he had seen most vampires use in a day.  _She must have incredible stamina and endurance._ Normal Methuselah could only use haste once or twice in a battle before they tired. And yet, she had done it not once or twice, but three times, and she still had the strength to feed.

But he knew it was a woman, and of the 152 people in this city, only 55 were women. And of that number, only 42 could possibly be the Methuselah. The height of the Methuselah was not that of a child. 42 possibilities. 42 possible killers.

He reached the graveyard and began digging. He slammed the shovel into the muddy, rocky earth and went at it, more frustrated and angry than he had ever been.

He hated Methuselah. He hated that they existed. But then again, where would he be if the Methuselah hadn't existed? He wouldn't have been created. Alexander Braddock might have lived an easy life with his family if he had never had to join Albion's army. Maybe Alexander would still be alive.

He hated the rain. He wish it would just  _fucking_ stop. All it did in this damn town was rain. No town gatherings, nobody went out into the streets and mingled. Nothing but  _death_  and  _fear._ It was nothing like Rome, where most times the streets were so crowded that you could easily get lost.

He hated the emptiness that lingered over this town. He hated how everyone was afraid of their own  _damn_ shadow. And all because of that _stupid fucking woman!_

He didn't realize he was already done digging the grave until he hit a rock again that jarred him out of his thoughts. He glared down at the dirt covered stone with malice, but he didn't know why. Today it seemed like everything set him off edge.

He climbed up out of the hole and proceeded to dig three more for the corpses he had surveyed previously.

That night, after the service was held (really wasn't even a service as only Bishop Linda and the boy's mother had gone), Tres returned to the bell tower. The Methuselah woman would make an appearance again. She hadn't fed since they arrived in Letetia two weeks ago, and certainly the blood of a young boy hadn't satisfied her.

This time, however, he wouldn't be so merciless.

The night was darker than ever, so Tres kept his eyes closed and merely listened. His hearing was much better than his vision, anyway. He heard the rain on shingles, but that wasn't what interested him. He needed those footsteps…

_Just come out already._

And there they were. Far off, to his left. He whirled, using his sights to get a better look at where she was. When he spotted her, she was walking over the roof of the diner, and he wondered briefly if she hadn't already killed someone inside. That thought sickened him.

He waited, watching her carefully. And she seemed to be looking for him, as well. He didn't move, didn't make a sound as she came closer. Oh, how he wished he had his Vidhwansak AMR right now. A 114 millimeter bullet going 1,080 meters a second would look good between her eyes right now.

But he waited until she was close, then he fired a shot right at her heart.

As predicted, she used haste, but he was already off the bell tower. He  _would_ get her this time. Tonight, she wasn't getting away. He fired three more times, in alternating areas, but none right at her. Distractions were necessary in catching this Methuselah. She was much too fast to rely on only brute force.

She leapt down from the roof, hitting the streets earlier than he expected her to. It was if she was asking for him to chase her. So this wasn't like last night. The Methuselah was toying with him tonight. He knit his arched eyebrows and followed after her anyway, emptying an entire magazine at her.  _Use up her haste,_  he told himself.  _Even she has to have a limit._

Once again, she was heading straight towards the church. The both of them knew she wasn't going to make it there. Tres knew she had used up her haste by this point. She had become much slower.

He put a silver bullet in her shoulder and hip and down she fell. Even so, he didn't waste any time. He pressed her against the ground, tying her hands behind her back and binding her feet, and then he pushed her over to look at her.

A middle-aged Methuselah, with dark black hair and steel grey eyes looking up at him with hatred. He knew who she was. Esther had spoken to her several times. It was Jezebel, or 'Jezzie'. The woman who worked in the diner as the barkeep.

"Caught you," he said, his voice cold. This Methuselah had killed so many people, had more than one opportunity to kill Esther… He paid no mind to the blood that was pooling underneath her. At this rate, she would probably bleed to death, and he was okay with that.  _Slow and painful is what she deserves._

Jezebel smiled, and it twisted her face so she looked insane. "Are you so sure?" she murmured and his eyes widened as he felt her hand grip at his neck. But not hers. Hers were bound, so who…?

It wasn't until he was slammed into the ground did he see how. There were two of her. She could clone herself? And the bitch actually had the _nerve_  to point his own gun at him. Brute force seemed to be a necessity now.

He was about to move when gunfire came from behind him, towards the church. A gleaming silver bullet hit her right in the forehead, and her body turned to ash that fell onto him like a blanket. Esther was there, her robe tied tightly around her, holding her shotgun steadily in her hands and looking quite vicious.

"Don't you dare touch him!" she roared, and Tres had to admit, she scared even him.

But he didn't have time to think about that.

He grabbed the gun Jezebel's clone had taken from him as well as the other and stood up, eyeing the real Jezebel with a look that made her shiver. Esther flats made no sound as she ran to his side, meeting Jezebel's steel eyes.

"Why?" she hissed. "Why you, Jezzie? I thought you were trying to help us!"

At this, Jezebel smiled again, tsking at her. "You really do trust people much too easily, Esther," she cooed eerily. "You're much too gullible and pathetic. Why do you think, out of everyone here, I chose you to talk to everyday? It was easy, you know. To become your 'friend', as you pathetic Terran call it. It would be easy to tell you a little story and lead you and your  _pet-"_  she narrowed her eyes at Tres. "away from me."

Tres's anger flared up again. How  _dare_  she call Esther pathetic! God, he wanted to shoot her so badly right now.

Instead, he made sure his magazine was full before he aimed his gun at Jezebel. "Tell me how to stop the rain," he said. Esther flinched, looking over at him. Now more than ever he reminded her of the Tres he had been before.

Jezebel laughed. "There's only one way, you stupid priest," she spat. "I bring the rain with me wherever I go. I was cursed from birth, but I see it as a blessing. I don't have to worry about the sunlight. Diluted silver is so hard to find here in Franc, you know? Might as well get rid of the sun itself. And besides." She shrugged. "With everyone too dimwitted to leave here, there were plenty of pickings. Like that boy, who was much too keen on playing in the rain."

Tres fired, hitting her near the heart. She gasped in shock and pain and crumpled to the ground, her hand coming to cover the blood now spilling from her chest.

"I kill you and that stops the rain, huh?" Tres said, glaring down at her. "Simple enough."

"You won't kill me, priest," she laughed, though it was strained. "Your orders are to bring me in, not-" Tres didn't listen to the rest of her argument. He put the end of his gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Her lifeless body flopped to the wet, muddy ground with a dull flop. A bleeding, ragged hole was in her forehead and the back of her head was blown out, bits of her brain scattered on the ground.

And as her blood stained the ground, the rain began to stop. He no longer heard raindrops hitting the shingles on the rooftops or splattering in week old puddles.

Instead, the clouds that had lingered above the town broke, and for the first time in months, sunshine hit the muddy streets of Letetia.


	22. Chapter 22

Tres could shamelessly saw that he never finished The Fatal Crown. Honestly, if anyone were to ask him about it, it would take him a minute to even recognize what they were talking about. It didn't bother him as much as it would have months ago, when he first began to change.

It was more of a realization that he didn't  _have_ to finish it. There were no orders to. It wasn't an obligation. So the book sat on the desk in the room he and Esther didn't mind sharing, collecting dust. Quite literally.

Instead, the occupation they kept now was trying to bring this town back together. Once the rain had ended (and they had cleaned up the bloody remains of Jezebel), the next morning, children had come out to the church, rushing the chapel and immediately asked Bishop Linda if they could see the person who had saved them from the rain and the fear.

Bishop Linda had dragged Tres away from Esther (which made Tres even grumpier than he had been previously) and brought him to the chapel, where the seventeen children shamelessly tackled him to the ground.

Esther had smiled warmly at the sight. Just as with Etoile so long ago, Tres was seemingly naturally good with children. He was soft and kind and patient with them, despite the fact that a few infatuated ten year olds would let him get up. But within two minutes, he was able to sit up and recover from the barrage, and within the next two, he had memorized all their names.

Seven girls: Janett, the twins Alana and Alanis, Kaila, Cora, Melinda and Jena. Ten boys: Abram, the brothers Devan and Dion, Elliot, Malakai, Cayden, Lucas, Marcel, Neal and Davin. More than Esther could remember. She could barely keep the twins straight, let alone remember the names of all of them. But Tres did, and when she couldn't remember, he would remind her. It made her feel old, but she didn't mind it.

Esther felt like a bit of a stalker when she watched Tres with them. He never knew she was watching (or maybe he did, and just didn't acknowledge it). So she would watch as the children told him stories or colored him pictures with wax from old candles or charcoal on parchment.

The drawings were always of him saving the town in one way or another. Tres didn't enjoy the over exaggeration of what he had done, but at least they weren't drawing scenes of terror, and they certainly didn't draw anything about Jezebel.

Cora was one of the quietest girls Esther had ever seen. She had sad eyes that reflected pain, and Bishop Linda said it was because both of her parents were murdered by Jezebel early on, right in front of her. The Bishop said she supposed it was because of shock that she never spoke after that day. When the other kids would draw or talk and laugh with Tres, she would sit a little ways off, watching, and never coming closer.

But it was another one of those days that she stayed behind after all the other kids had left to go back home. The small girl with the sad eyes and pigtails waited at the front of the chapel for Tres to look back at her.

"Cora," he said softly, kneeling in front of her. "Why aren't you going home?"

The girl lowered her eyes to the ground and her cheeks flushed before she thrust something into his hands and ran out of the church. Esther, who had been watching from the side, was confused at the girls' actions as well.

"What did she give you?" Esther wondered aloud, looking at the paper in his hands. It was a drawing. A drawing of Tres and Esther together, holding hands inside the church with all the kids and Bishop Linda. It was so well done that, not for a moment, could Tres truly believe that the eight year old had actually drawn it herself.

It was so magnificent that Esther felt tears prick her eyes. "Oh yeah, this is definitely going up on the wall." Esther had grown quite attached to the little ones that constantly swarmed Tres, so much so that she had made sure to put every single picture up on a wall in their room with tacks. It was something Tres smiled at when he walked by in the morning and in the evening, and Esther made sure to keep it updated when the children would give him more.

"I suppose if they could crawl in our luggage, they would just to come back to Rome with us!" Esther joked as she put it up on the wall. Tres knew she was right, especially Malakai and Cayden. The two boys were practically glued to his hips anywhere he went.

But it wasn't Malakai or Cayden that Tres thought about that night as he stared at the ceiling. It was Cora. Bishop Linda had told Tres about the young girls' predicament, if he could call it that. How she lived alone, with Linda occasionally coming to check up on her.

_When we fix the church, she should live here,_ he thought, listening to Esther's gentle breathing.  _She's much too young to be on her own._ That was the last thought he had before he, too, fell asleep.

The next day, the kids came back to the church, but Tres kindly told them that he needed to talk to Cora alone. They were disappointed, but they still listened to him (of course, because Tres had an authority that even children and all their stubbornness had to obey).

Cora was waiting out on the steps when Tres found her. She looked scared for a moment, but he merely sat down on the stairs near where she was standing. "I didn't get the chance to thank you yesterday for that lovely drawing," he murmured. "Esther hung it up on a wall in our room, did you know? We're both very proud of it."

Cora smiled meekly, coming to sit beside him, granted a good ways away. "I've never seen a child your age draw so well, especially with haphazardly made wax crayons," he continued. "You're very talented." Cora bowed her head gently, which Tres recognized as her way of saying 'thank you'. He smiled at her. "You're welcome."

Cora still didn't speak or linger around any of the other children, but when she and Tres were alone, she would be at his side. Esther enjoyed the little girls company just as much as Tres did, so when Cora didn't want to go home just yet, she, Tres and Esther would sit in the chapel. The two AX members would tell the girl stories of Rome, of the adventures they had been on with Father Nightroad and Father Leon. Esther told over exaggerated stories of when Tres had faced off against the dryad in the forest and then the mermaid on the ship, how he fought fearlessly and saved everyone aboard.

Such over exaggeration, but it was endearing to hear her speak of him that way.

Over the course of time, Tres had organized a group of men to help fix the various buildings in the town damaged by lightning and rain, as well as the church. They went just about everywhere in the town, making sure the conditions were livable, fixing roofs and walls and windows. Esther even got some of the women to start repainting the outside of some of them white, where the paint was chipped and faded. Slowly but surely, the town blossomed back into the normal, healthy state it was before the rain came.

The land outside the city was tilled and converted into farmland, where endless rows of corn, beans, squash and potatoes were planted. Traders were being sent out to various towns in the south and east, some even going to Albion to get livestock and bring it back to either kill or breed.

The air of distrust and fear over the town dissipated, much like the rain had when Tres killed Jezebel. Now, old women would come together and sit on their porches and talk or make bread from the flour they had. Esther had never tasted such delicious bread, not even at the feasts held in the Vatican. Men would help Tres work, laughing and talking as they did, sharing with Tres the traditions of Franc people. Younger women would come to the church and help Esther and Bishop Linda sew clothes or knit scarves and gloves for when the harsh winter months did come. Esther marveled at their skill, as she could never be that professional with knitting needles.

At the end of a long day, Tres and Esther would return to their bedroom (because even though the extra rooms were fixed, they preferred to share), and curl up together.

The pictures on the wall had taken up two by now, bordering on three. And still, the children continued to draw more, but it was less frequent. Since the streets were no longer muddy, but rather dried to dirt by the sun, they played football in the streets. They would even manage to get Tres to join in, but his coordination was better than theirs, so whosever team he was on would win every time.

Overall, the town had gone from a rainy place paralyzed by distrust and fear to a happy, normal town, with laughing people and baking old women, knitting ladies and children playing and two people in love.

The peace lasted.

For a little while.


	23. Chapter 23

As Tres had predicted, Lady Caterina was not happy that he had killed Jezebel. However, once he had explained that the only reason the rain was plaguing Letetia was because the Methuselah had been cursed to bring it along with her, the Cardinal had been more lenient than he had anticipated.

"I see, then, that you had no choice," she had said. "In order to keep our alliance with the Kingdom of Franc, it is our duty to ensure the peace. Before all of this, traders from Albion would come though from the ports to get to Paris." There had been a long pause. "I expect within a time Letetia will be just as well as it was years ago. I trust that you and Sister Blanchett will restore Letetia to its former glory. I trust your judgment, Father Tres. Do what you must."

And such as she suggested. Letetia was becoming just as it had been. Other than the population deficit, of course. Not that it would matter. By next spring, when traders came through the ports from Albion to get to the Paris markets, the city would be practically good as new.

But the latter bit of spring had passed, and so had summer. Autumn was coming to a close. Everyone in the city had to wear coats and gloves lest they freeze. Snow hadn't come quite yet, Bishop Linda remarked. Once it did, the children would be more willing to get out and play.

It was the first night in December that it happened.

Esther and Tres were sitting in the kitchen in front of the fire, exhausted after spending all day helping haul wood from the forest to the city to stock the fireplaces in the city. There wasn't anything particularly irregular about this night, other than the fact that rain was in the distance. Storms had been rumbling off in the distance but had avoided the town so far.

Other than the short bouts of thunder that would come and go, everything was peaceful. They were tired and sore, but everything was peaceful.

It wasn't until Esther heard a loud banging against the wooden doors of the church that she stood up from where she had been resting her head on Tres's shoulder. Who would be coming to the church at this time of night? She gave Tres a look, one that said 'what-is-going-on-here?' and left the kitchen in favor of going to the chapel.

Tres followed after her, but keep his guns' safety off, just in case.

Some people could say that Tres was always on edge. Like he was always waiting for something bad to happen. And they would rarely be wrong. He acknowledged his awfully twitchy trigger finger and inclination to see the worst of a situation from time to time. Okay, more like all the time. But you could really hardly blame him. Everyone was a threat until proven otherwise.

Esther led the way into the chapel, looking out the window at the steps before opening the door. There was no one out there, only a cold breeze that made goose bumps rise on her arms. There wasn't even a package left on the doorstep or anything.

"Prank?" Esther murmured, more offset by Tres' paranoia than her own. Really, he had the most intense brown eyes when he wanted to. He said nothing, merely looking out into the streets as though something would spring out at them. "Well, I hope so."

And of course, hope is always something meant to be shattered.

Esther saw it first out of her peripheral vision, but she wasn't the one who reacted to it. It was Tres, instead, who grabbed her upper arm and pulled her out of the way. Her bum hit the floor and her head smacked into the back of the pew right as she heard a single gunshot fire into the night.

Her vision wavered and tears pricked her eyes. The back of her head stung and her bum throbbed. Rubbing both, she looked up to see what had Tres so alarmed.

It was a Methuselah. Young, younger than her. Blonde hair that glowed against the dark of the chapel. And she currently had Tres pinned to the floor and was tearing her claws into his chest.

At the sight of the man she loved being attacked like that, she was met with two feelings. Helplessness and fear, because she had left her gun on her bed and, though his gun was mere inches from her, the recoil would break her arm. And complete anger and adrenaline. Something that made her do something so rash and stupid that she would berate herself a lot later on.

She stood up despite her throbbing bum and used her body as a battering ram, slamming right into the side of the Methuselah girl. It barely did much to deter her from her goal, but it did get her off Tres for a moment. Long enough for him to get his gun back in his hand.

But Esther was more worried about him than the Methuselah at the moment. His shirt was ruined, torn to shreds by her claws. Deep ruts were torn into his skin, and blood was leaking freely from the wounds. "Esther, get away from her," he said, standing up and aiming his gun at the Methuselah.

The girl growled as Esther looked at her and did as Tres said, coming to stand behind the priest.

"It's not her we want." It was a different voice. A males, young, possibly the same age as the girl. "It's you, Father Tres Iqus. Or should I say "Gunslinger"? Caterina's dog? Esther Blanchett's slave? What  _do_ you prefer to be called nowadays?"

"It depends on who's asking," Tres answered, looking for the source of the voice.

"We're friends of a friend of yours," the man answered, and then he appeared, from thin air, right behind the woman. "Oh, I shouldn't say friend, more like the woman you killed!"

Tres fired at the man, but he disappeared just as quickly as he had appeared.  _Haste? No, it's too fast for that. Then what-?_

He didn't have the time to finish that thought.

He was barely even aware of feeling Esther be ripped away from him and thrown into the podium at the front of the chapel. It shattered on impact with her body. It happened in a split second, so quick he barely had the chance to react.

And he couldn't have anyway, because now, there was a hand thrust through the center of his chest.

_Shit._

Esther groaned as pain ripped through her back, legs and arms. Splinters were dug deeply into the back of her forearms and calves. There were sure to be a worthwhile painting of bruises all over her. But what the hell had thrown her?

She managed to open her eyes for a brief moment, though the sting of pain was beginning to make her feel faint and dizzy.  _I'll pass out soon,_ she realized. But not before she saw something that made her scream on the inside before she spiraled into nothingness.

Tres, unconscious on the floor, being dragged out of the chapel by the two Methuselah.


	24. Chapter 24

Esther groaned as a pang in her back forced her awake. Her back was so sore. Was it from carrying all that stupid wood? God in Heaven… how about never doing that again? She rolled onto her side painfully, dimly aware of the light against her eyelids, but she didn't open them. She was too tired, too sore. She wanted to sleep more.

"Tres…" she murmured, hoping he would understand that she was too sore to help today. But she didn't hear him respond. Was he already gone?

Gone…

In an instant, she remembered the Methuselah, Tres bleeding, being dragged away. Esther sat up with sharp pain in her back that she was determined to ignore. Pulling her robe on over her nightgown, she walked, bare foot, to the chapel. Bishop Linda was there, as were Fryderyk and Angele, helping her clean up the destroyed podium and the blood from the wood floor.

"Oh, Esther dear," Bishop Linda said, tears filling her eyes. "I'm sorry, but-"

"Where's Tres?" Esther managed to say, her voice and legs quivering.  _Please don't say he's gone…_ She pretended not to see the Bishop shed a tear but quickly wipe it away.  _Please don't say my Tres is gone…_

"We don't know, Esther, there was-"

Esther cut her off, grabbing the Bishops shoulders and shaking her. "Don't lie to me," she ground out. "Where. Is. Tres?"

Bishop Linda bit her lip, but spoke nonetheless. "He's gone, Esther," she said resolutely. "They took him. They took him and Cora."

Esther opened her mouth as to say something, but nothing came out but a strangled sob. Releasing her iron grip on the Bishop's shoulders, she sank to the floor, her knees aching against the wood. No, no he couldn't be gone... She had to call AX. She had to get Father Nightroad. Father Nightroad could save him, Father Nightroad could anybody.

No.

Not now, not this time.

Esther picked herself off the floor, trying to calm her rapid breathing. She wiped her eyes, and abruptly left the chapel. Getting dressed, she strapped her shotgun to her leg and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes red but set.

She didn't have to have Father Nightroad anymore. No, Esther was done relying on Father Nightroad or Tres to rescue her every time something happened.  _I'm done being a damsel in distress._

This time, Esther would be the one to save Tres. To save  _her_ Tres.

When Tres opened his eyes, he first realized of the awful pain in his chest. Upon opening his eyes, he found that he was in a completely barren, dark room, with nothing but shackles bolted to the walls. Looking up at his hands, he realized his wrists her chained to the wall, and no matter how hard he pulled, they wouldn't come loose.

It was only after hearing a small whimper did he realize someone else was in here with him. It was Cora. The little girl was held in place by a ball and chain wrapped around her ankle. A bad bruise was across her cheek and wrists, and she was looking up at him with sad eyes.

"Cora," he whispered, more to himself than to her, or anyone else in particular. Another harsh stab of pain made him almost wince. Almost.

 _The Methuselah said they wanted me,_ Tres thought.  _So why would they bring Cora? …is Esther here?_

"We brought the girl because we know you're close to her." Tres looked to the doorway as light filtered in the room. Cora had to shield her eyes it was so bright. From the light came the Methuselah, both of them. The woman scowled at him, limping into the room. One of his bullets had torn into the side of her leg, not enough to incapacitate her, but enough to make her hobble for a week or two. The man, however, looked completely calm.

"As for Sister Esther Blanchett-" Tres flinched at the sound of her name. "-She will no doubt come here on her own. We left an evident trail that even someone of her limited mental capacity could notice and follow."

"Why are you doing this?" Tres asked, though he knew the simplified reason.

"You killed Jezebel," the woman growled, and the man raised a hand to silence her.

"Indeed you did," he murmured. "Jezebel took us in long ago when we were starving and on our own. She helped us survive, she raised us. She was like a mother to us. We watched her while she was within the town, joining her when she feasted on the Terran. Everything was easy and simple, until you showed up."

"So this is about revenge, then," Tres concluded. "If that is what you want, why not go ahead and kill me?"

The man smiled. It was a twisted smirk, one that contorted his face to look like something from a nightmare. "Oh, no," he laughed. "We won't make it that easy." He knelt in front of Tres, putting his fingertips just above the hole in his chest. "First, we have to have that wonderful Esther Blanchett that you're so fond of to join us. It wouldn't be a true party without her around, now would it? Killing you is too easy. You're a machine, you can block out the pain if it gets too intense. I know how you work. I've done my research. But that doesn't mean I can't break you. When Esther Blanchett get here… I'll give you a show. I'll tear her apart and you'll watch it all happen." Tres resisted another flinch as he dug his claws deep into Tres' skin. "I'll break you in every way I know how. Then you can die."

Without another word, he turned and left. The woman glared at Tres a moment longer before following, limping out before slamming the door closed. Tres heard a vault-like lock twist and click shut before he heard them walk away, leaving him and Cora in darkness and silence.

Tres leaned back against the wall, wishing, for the first time, that he wouldn't have to see Esther anytime soon.


	25. Chapter 25

If Esther had been in her right mind, she probably would have noticed that the trail the Methuselah had left behind was strikingly obvious. But of course, she wasn't. She was blinded by rage and fear so profound that her body shook with adrenaline. Methuselah, two very strong, incredibly fast Methuselah, had come into the city, right under their noses. They had come and taken Tres away from her, dragging him off to God knows where and doing God knows what to him. But they hadn't harmed anyone else. No one in the entire city knew of their intrusion. Hell, they hadn't even left footprints.

So when she left the town and their trail become incredibly obvious, she should have been suspicious.

Deep boot marks were in the earth, blood dragging across the grass and staining it.  _Tres's blood._ That knowledge only infuriated and frightened her more. She knew it was actual  _blood_ per say (life-sustaining fluid, as Professor Wordsworth put it), but could he still die if he lost too much? Go into shock? Could androids go into shock?

She was unsure, but if that should occur while she was with him, Esther didn't have the tools with her to stop the bleeding. All she had was her shotgun and Tres's Berettas strapped to her belt.

They were heavy, but it hardly slowed her down. If she ran out of ammo, they were her only back up. But, again, the recoil itself would dislocate her shoulder or worse, break her arms. And she couldn't be a rescuer with a broken ulna and radius, now could she?

Then again, she hadn't actually tried firing one while holding it with both hands. Maybe if she braced herself against a tree or a wall, she would be able to take it. At the same time, she wasn't planning to find out anytime soon, and if she did, it would be in a dire situation.

The air was frigid as it began to grow dark. She couldn't be able to see the path soon, and she had been walking all day. God, how far had they gotten? Esther could only hope that they hadn't gotten onto a ship and left for Albion. She would never be able to find them then.

She kept walking as the sun set and the moon came up, and she could barely see the path anymore. Guided by the moonlight, she squinted to get hints of blood and footsteps to track.

Once it was near midnight, she noticed a door. It was built into the side of one of the shallow hills, the path leading right to it. Heavy and wooden, and she suspected it was locked. It didn't matter either way. She would break it down with her bare hands if it came down to it. Pulling her shotgun from her holster, she inspected the door closer, jiggling the handle experimentally.

To Esther's surprise, it was unlocked and swung right open with a heavy creak. A cold wind ruffled her hair, bringing the smell of mildew and blood along with it. If there was a doubt before, there wasn't now. The Methuselah and Tres were definitely here.

It was just a matter of where.

Esther had heard of these types of bunkers before. Illegal smugglers used them all the time to get it from the docks into the Kingdom of Franc without having to pass through screening for drugs or illegal weaponry. The tunnels stretched for miles, with endless twists and turns designed to get the police lost because they didn't know the secret passages and switches on the walls. Storage rooms lined some halls, others lined with cells designed to hold people until they starved to death.

She hated thinking this, but she hoped, morbidly, that the blood trail continued so she could find Tres.

It was pitch black inside, so she brought out one of Tres's guns and turned on the light on the underside of the barrel. If she was faced with one of the Methuselah, she would either have to fire or be attacked. Either way, she would be injured.

Swallowing, she went into the tunnels, keeping a keen eye on the blood smeared along the floor.

"Tres?" she asked loudly, listening to her voice echo for what seemed like miles. She didn't know whether or not she expected an answer, but she didn't have much else to do beside explorer the tunnels further.

The moonlight cast a pale shadow of her legs until the door shut behind her. She whirled, her arms shaking to hold Tres's gun level. The light only showed the heavy wooden door and nothing more. No Methuselah. She was the only one in the tunnel.

Esther sighed, settling back into the rhythm of following her trail. More endless, fearful steps, a left turn. A creak, far off. "Tres?" she called again, and once more, there was no answer. She continued, her fingers tightening around Tres's gun nervously, her palms sweaty.

A right turn and then another right, before she took a left down a staircase. Once at the bottom, she tried again. "Tres!"

Far away from her current location, said priest opened his eyes sharply in alarm. Cora was nestled into his lap, and she couldn't hear the voice even if she tried. Even with his heightened sense of hearing, it was still hard to hear.

 _Please, tell me she didn't come,_  he pleaded to no one in particular. He waited for a long time, fear eating away at him. Hopefully he just imagined it. He was half asleep anyway. But no, he couldn't be so lucky.

"Tres!" Esther called out again, louder, closer this time. He sighed, unsure of whether or not he should answer. The Methuselah could be waiting, just outside the door in the darkness for her to find him. He couldn't stand to see her hurt, to see her bleed, because of him.

A long stretch of silence, and Tres heard the groaning of a door close to his own. "Tres? Can you hear me? Are you here?" she asked desperately, so close Cora roused from her sleep and sat up. Tres practically begged God not to let her open his door.  _Don't let her find me, don't –_

All his begging didn't matter. She opened the door anyway.

At the sight of her, all her beautiful blue eyes, red hair and pale skin, clothes in disarray, one of his guns in her hands, Tres wanted to be relieved. He wanted to be able to see her and be happy that she was there, that he could see her again.

Esther, in the meantime, was shocked. Cora was there, too. Dried blood was on her temple, but she could see it didn't belong to the little girl. Tres looked worst of them both. His clothes were torn and bloody, from the wound she had seen him receive and more that she hadn't. His hair was tousled and messy, and his amber, puppy dog eyes looked up at her from where he was chained to a wall with something… almost like…

Fear?

She didn't have the time to process that thought, however, because she felt hands grip at her arms and yank all her guns away, practically throwing her in to the cell. The ground was rough and scrapped her elbows and palms, little rocks digging into her skin and remaining there as she sat up and craned her neck to see her assailant.

It was the two Methuselah. The man who had hurt Tres and the woman who had attacked them first. Esther scowled at both of them, roaring as she stood up quickly and aimed to hit them with her first. The man easily caught it with a scoff-like laugh, bending her wrist back enough to make tears prick her eyes and pushed her onto her back.

"Well, this was easier than I thought," he remarked offhandedly to the woman beside him. "Now that my audience is here, I suppose I can finally introduce ourselves. I am Seth, and this is my… coworker, I suppose you could say, Lamia. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He bowed mockingly to the three inside the room.

Esther glanced back at Tres, who merely lowered his gaze to the ground before closing his eyes. Looking back to Seth and Lamia, she asked, "Why are you doing this?"

"Why?" Seth laughed, rolling his eyes. "Why don't you tell her what's going to happen, Hound? Go ahead, don't be shy." Tres didn't say anything, but when Lamia took a step closer to Esther, menacingly, he relented.

"They're going to hurt you and Cora," he murmured, not looking up from the ground, his voice soft. "To get back at me for killing Jezebel. They left a trail for you to follow so you would come right here, to this spot, so they could get you."

"Precisely," Seth said, grinning. He stepped into the room, kneeling just in front of Esther. His fingers thread through her hair almost lovingly before yanking, hard and painfully, to pull her mere inches from his face. His breath reeked of blood and his gleaming eyes held an insanity there that made her quake with fear. "So, Miss Blanchett," he whispered, so close their noses were almost touching.

"Welcome to the show."


	26. Chapter 26

After being shackled to the wall across the room from Tres, Seth and Lamia left the three of them in silence. It was an uneasy, unbearable silence that ripped at her heart. She had been so stupid, so foolish, to come here like this. Why didn't she have enough common sense to call for backup from the Vatican? Surely they had  _someone_  around here that could come, even if it wasn't someone she knew.

Within a few minutes, no one had spoken, but the guilt and the fear Esther felt didn't ease any. "Tres I'm so sorry," she whispered, her voice strangely loud in comparison to the silence. "I'm so stupid and I'm sorry, I-"

"Esther, it's okay," she heard him say, his voice soft and soothing. "I'll get the three of us out of here, alright?"

He didn't say anything more, but it reassured her enough so she could get a little sleep.

When she woke up, her wrists and shoulders hurt and there was a crick in her neck. There was a soft light coming from a slot in the door, enough to show her that she was alone in the cell. Tres and Cora were both gone. Her heart leapt to her throat, but she could realize that there was nothing she could say or do. She sat there, alone, for what seemed like hours.

Eventually, someone came and got her, someone she didn't recognize, and unshackled her. She wanted to rub her wrists, which were already beginning to be rubbed raw, but this unknown man grabbed one roughly, and drug her out and down the hall.

She was taken to the end of a dark and cold hallway, her bare feet freezing against the concrete. The hallway ended with an unfinished wall, still being dug into the earth. The unknown Methuselah gave her a pick, told her to get at it, and disappeared down the hallway.

And so she hammered into the wall, her stomach growling at her as she worked, her sore arms becoming even worse, blisters popped up on her hands after nearly an hour. Every time she wanted to take a break, that Methuselah would appear from nowhere and tell her to keep going, and she would, because she saw that he had a whip in his hands and clearly meant business.

So she kept going, and going, and going, even after one of her blisters rubbed raw enough to bleed and her legs shook with exhaustion. She needed rest, she needed water and food. She should have slept more. Eventually, the Methuselah stopped her by pushing her out of the way and taking the pick out of her hands.

And she was returned to the cold, dark cell, where Tres and Cora surprisingly awaited her, was re-shackled to the wall, given no food or water, but she slept and was grateful for that.

The days continued the very same way for weeks. Food only came every two days, and they gave them enough for her and Cora to share. Tres didn't need to eat, and he was becoming achingly quiet. Every five days the still unknown Methuselah would drag her down to a cold room and she would be stripped and blasted with harsh, cold water; her bath. Every day she would go down to the end of the hall and be given a pick and made to go at it. Her blisters still bled every day and he shoulders and arms, legs and feet ached, and her wrists were raw from the shackles.

She quickly realized that the more progress she made on the wall, the more food they would get every other day. So she would swing harder, ignoring the pain in her arms and shoulders and wrists, and when food would come, they would have enough for the next day.

Esther didn't know why, but eventually, the Methuselah that held them there never brought Tres back. She didn't know whether he was being put in another cell or being held somewhere and tortured, and that worried her more than anything.

Cora cried every night. In the beginning, Esther would comfort her and once the girl fell asleep, she would cry too and pray that someone would help them.

After two weeks, Cora stopped crying.

After a month, the ice spray baths didn't seem so bad.

After two months, she stopped praying.

After three months, she began to think that Tres was dead. She didn't see him, or hear anything about him. When Seth or Lamia would make an appearance, she would ask them where he was, but they would never give her an answer.

It was after those fleeting meetings that she would want to cry, but she couldn't. She'd ran out of tears a long time ago.

It was in the middle of the night when she heard a loud bang, one that roused both her and Cora from sleep. The door didn't open, so she didn't think it was morning, And that really annoyed her, because she needed her sleep, especially if she and Cora wanted a good meal that evening.

She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to rest her head in a comfortable position against her raised arm, when she heard a few more bangs, a bit closer than before. And she realized that they weren't the noises of someone hitting the wall, or a door.

They were gunshots.

She immediately sat up straight, leaning forward, her eyes locked on the slot in the door, where weak light was filtering through from the hallway.

Something blocked the light then, but it didn't pass. She heard the tumblers of the lock as it twisted open, and the groaning of the door as it opened. Esther's heart began to rise into her throat, hope springing up inside her.

She first saw a harsh light, like a flashlight, a glint of silver hair in a ponytail in ridiculous glasses, and she began to cry.


	27. Chapter 27

At her sudden cry, ice blue, wide eyes locked onto her, and Father Abel Nightroad's mouth fell open in surprise. A breathless gasp of her name escaped his throat. And then, after a moment, he fired two shots and the shackles fell from her raw wrists, making her jump. By now, Cora was sitting up, curled as far into the wall as she could. Esther wanted to tell her it was okay, that they were safe now, but she couldn't. Her voice was lost, choked with the hundred questions she wanted to ask.

_Where's Tres? How did you find us? Does the Vatican know? Is the town okay? Is Bishop Linda okay? Is Tres dead? Where is he? Did he escape?_

So, instead, she was wordlessly taken by the hand and led out of the room as a free woman for the first time in what felt like an eternity. Cora gripped her hand so tightly that it hurt, but she couldn't find it in her to care at the moment.

The emergency lights in the hall had come on, flashing red throughout the compound. Father Nightroad guided them quickly down the winding halls, until the scenery began to look a bit familiar. Something that picked at her brain from so long ago…

They were nearing the exit.

"Where's Tres?" she was finally asking. It was finally ripping itself free from her throat. Esther was surprised at how rough her voice sounded. It was as if every syllable she tried to annunciate was sandpaper. Father Nightroad didn't seem to hear her, and if he had, he had chosen to ignore her. So she cleared her throat, and tried again. "Where's Tres?" Good. This time it was louder; stronger.

"We don't have time," Father Nightroad said, looking down a hallway to their right before continuing on. "The compound is about to be purged. It's going to collapse soon. I don't know the way around this place well enough to find him, too."

As soon as Esther registered his words, she stopped dead in her tracks, ripping her hand from Father Nightroad's grip. When he turned around, she met his eyes with a fire he hadn't seen since the Cardinal. "We are  _not_ leaving Tres here to die!" she shouted hoarsely, setting her jaw and shoulders. Cora stood solid beside her in silent support.

"Esther, we can't-"

"No!" She stopped him before he could even start. "We. Are.  _Not._  Leaving him." It was an intense standoff, with the flashing red lights and the distant blare of some sort of siren. The exit from this hell wasn't but a few halls away, and yet she chose to turn back and delve deeper into the labyrinth.

Slowly, Father Nightroad understood there was no winning, and shook his head in disbelief. "Fine," he huffed. "But at least let me get Cora out of here?" He asked it quietly, as if he thought she was a bomb getting ready to go off. And she was. She was a star, and she had been dimmed for far too long. Esther nodded, urging Cora in front of her.

"Go with Father Nightroad," she said softly, reassuringly, kneeling down to be eyelevel with her. "He's a friend of mine. And of Tres's. Okay? He can get you back to the church. I'll go get Tres and we'll be back there soon. I promise." Tears welled up in Cora's eyes and her lip quivered, but she nodded, hugging Esther tightly around the shoulders.

"Hurry," came a soft whisper right beside her ear, barely heard, and she nodded again.

"I promise."

She had no map, no distinguishing features, no way to know where she was going. But she still ran. Doors were flung open along her way, and Tres's name called, receiving no answer. Her heart pounded with adrenaline, with fear. But if this place collapsed on top of her, then at least she would die trying to save the man she loved.

Up and down halls, down stairs, going deeper, red lights flashing and sirens screaming all around her.

A body, slamming into hers.

Esther was thrown back against the wall, barely managing to grab the railing to right herself before she fell to the floor. Her hip wasn't spared, though, and it stung badly as it slammed into the metal rail. It would bruise. But the pain was temporary, it would fade. Opening her eyes, she met the eyes of the Methuselah that had taken her to and from the end of the hallway, to tear it away with a pick.

They held each other's gaze for a long time, and Esther wanted to kick herself for not bringing something. Holy water, a knife, a  _gun_ would have been great. But she had been in too much of a rush to get Father Nightroad to get her something. And now she was defenseless and weak.

But the Methuselah didn't attack her. In fact, he looked just as scared as her, if not more. And after a moment, he pointed down the hallway he had just come from. "There," he said, with a very thick accent. "The android? That way." And he used haste to disappear down the hall she had come down, sprinting towards the exit.

Esther was overjoyed. Tres was alive, but her joy was cut short when she had the thought of,  _just how alive is he?_  What had they done to him in these months? She swore if they had hurt a hair on his beautiful little head she would rip them apart and set them on fire.

Down the hallway she went, flinging open every door, calling his name with panic and fear layering her every move, every word, every breath.

And when she finally flung open the door that led to him, her breath stopped.

She remembered seeing Tres injured from the Ifrit that blinded him. How he had gotten injured to save her and remembered how useless she had felt.

This was nothing like that.

This was worse.

Tres was in a type of dentist's chair that looked like it had been specially designed for torture or a lobotomy. Wires were plugged into every port in his body and a visor covered his eyes so she couldn't see them. It reminded her of when he was at the helm of the Iron Maiden. Within the room, there was nothing but computer terminals and control booths, each blinking lights and messages across their screens faster than she could ever hope to process.

And when she realized what this was, she felt like she was going to be sick.

They were using Tres as their own, personal computer. Using his CPU like it was connected to nothing but a machine instead of a brain that was a living person with emotions.

Once again, Esther had rushed into a situation without a plan, without knowing what to do. Once again, Esther had no idea how to save Tres Iqus.


	28. Chapter 28

Esther remembered all the times she had felt useless. When she was young and Dietrich was sick, dying, and neither she nor Bishop Vitez could do a thing. When the Methuselah came into Istvan, and people were afraid and getting killed left and right. When Gyula saved her from being killed by Radcon and says he's sorry for killing the Bishop. Being unable to help anyone but Etoile while Abel fought against the vampire. In the forest, when Tres got injured protecting her from the dryad. In Rome, when she got Tres blinded by the Ifrit. When Tres was first taken and she was the idiot that jumped into the pit without a rope around her waist.

And now, when she had no idea what to touch or if she should move. She didn't have time to go back to find Father Nightroad, and she didn't know if she could find her way back to the entrance and back here. She was on her own, and she would be damned before she abandoned Tres. With the distant screaming of the sirens, she when to the closest computer terminal, where she supposed she might as well begin.

The screen had a series of analog control log in sequences on it. After a bit of digging, she found that the terminal settings had been switched into Italian, a language she was gratefully familiar with.

The first analog control she delved into was the emergency purge override. If she could manage to deactivate this sequence she would have more time to figure out how to save Tres. She didn't know as much about machines or computers as Professor Wordsworth, but she knew that if information from these terminals were being relayed through Tres's CPU, than merely unplugging them or shutting down the system would destroy Tres's processing system, effectively killing any sense of who he was.

And she wouldn't allow that.

All she needed were two security key codes, which were each in a terminal, she knew. And that terminal would be locked so she would have to figure out the passcode. And if she couldn't figure out the passcode within a certain amount of time, than the system would lock and she wouldn't be able to stop the system purge or save Tres.

So that was the one Esther went to first.

A password was needed. Great. It was more likely than not to be something in French, some word she barely knew. Her French was awful, and even her lessons with Bishop Linda hadn't helped her become fluent. General conversation, and hardly anything more. She shook her head. Right now, she couldn't worry about her fluency in French. She had to figure out this password.

Think about her captors these past months. Of Seth and Lamia. This place, a drug smuggling tunnel system. These computers were old, older than the ones she had to access at Gyula's castle or the computer that Bishop Vitez had taught her on long ago. But the software looked just as recent as some of the Vatican's computers.

She lifted her hands to the keyboard, fingers shaking, and typed  _"Jezebel"._

**INCORRECT**

Damn it, she thought. That was her best guess. She stood back for a second, biting her lip, knitting her eyebrows tightly in thought. She would get this. It was just a matter of how soon. She began to type again.  _'vengeance'_ , French for revenge.

**INCORRECT**

Fuck! At most, she had one more try before the system locked the terminals and she wouldn't be able to stop the purge. It had to be something personal. Seth and Lamia were very emotionally controlled people. If it wasn't Jezebel, what could it be?

The thought hit her like a train.

" _Most people call me Jezzie."_

' _Jezzie'_

**ACCESS GRANTED**

Sweet success. The system purge codes were practically waiting for her. Code 405: 116BTV and code 410: 795LVM. 405 and 410, the numbers of the terminals in the room. When she went to 405, it was already turned on for her. Once she found the purge lock, she put in the code, and bright green letters appeared. SYSTEM PURGE SHUT DOWN PENDING.

She ran to the next, 410, opened the system purge lock and put in the next code. SYSTEM PURGE SHUTTING DOWN.

The screeching sirens outside stopped, the terminals locked again, and she returned to the first. If she could find the system's wiring module she was pretty sure she would be able to shut it down and be able to get Tres out of here.

She had to look for a long time, through hundreds of lines of computer code that hurt her eyes. She felt a lot less stressed now that the sirens were off. Eventually, she was able to look through some more of the binary code and saw what she was looking for.

The system wiring.

More trying and she eventually figured out which of the coding systems were actually Tres's CPU. It made her heart almost stop to realize that she would be able to alter any little part of him right here, right now. If she messed up, erased a code somewhere, she could erase a part of him.

After much experimentation and looking and processing, she was finally able to tell where one began and another ended. And it was with meticulous purpose that she altered the sequencing ever so slightly…

The entire system shut off.

Her breath caught in her throat at the thought that she had done something wrong, but then she heard a heavy hissing from behind her and turned to see one of the cables falling free from Tres. And nothing in her could move. Her heart felt like it had stopped as she waited with her breath halted, but waiting for what, she couldn't say.

"Tres?" she whispered, not sure if she should hear a response or not. The dynamics of a Killing Doll was much too complicated for her to understand. She went to the other side of the chair, carefully removing the visor that covered his eyes.

His eyes reminded her of when he had lost his sight against the Ifrit, darkened amber, unseeing.

"Come on Tres, let's go," she said, pulling all the other tubes from his body. "We have to get back to Letetia, we've been here too long." Esther grabbed at his arm, which slid from her hand and fell uselessly back to the chair.

"Tres, please, come on," she whispered, trying not to let tears come into her eyes. Worry and fear were threatening to rip her apart. Setting her jaw, she put her arms under his shoulders and hauled him up, his body collapsing into her. He was so limp it was like he was d–

No, she wouldn't think that.

Hooking her arms under his, she pulled him up, dragging him off the chair. It took all her strength to keep the both of them from collapsing to the floor. Esther put his arm around her shoulders and one of hers around his waist. She didn't care if she had to drag him out, there was no way they were staying in here another second more than they needed to.

And so she did.

By the time she heard Father Nightroad calling, she was almost to the exit. Her shoulder was aching due to Tres's weight, her breath harsh in her own ears.

While Father Nightroad took Tres, her eyes were trained on the doorway, something she hadn't been through in months. The Father went on ahead, taking Tres with him into the blinding light and into the oblivion of freedom.

And when she finally stepped out, she was shocked to see what was there. She could see the  _Iron Maiden_ above, Professor Wordsworth already bent over Tres, and Father Leon, who was screaming words she couldn't hear to Father Nightroad.

But what more, is there was rain. It was pouring down all around them as her bare feet found muddy, wet grass. Looking to the sky, blinking as the rain fell around her eyes, she began crying without a sound.

It was funny, how, before, rain had meant imprisonment, and now, it meant freedom.


	29. Chapter 29

Things had gone to high hell in a matter of moments. The rain was coming down hard, soaking through clothes in seconds, and everyone was thankful for waterproof boots. They'd finally found the entrance to the tunnel system that had long since stopped being used for smuggling. Their existence was known, but it was just a matter of which part were Tres and Esther in.

It had all started a month ago, when Abel had returned from his mission, exhausted, hungry, in desperate need of some tea and sleep. The Vatican was in a state that was for sure. Abel didn't think he had ever seen Caterina so worried. It might not have been such a big deal, though when Caterina told him of Tres and Esther's mission, as well as Tres's humanization and then their disappearance? That was enough to concern him.

Caterina had said they'd been receiving small, weak signals from somewhere near Letetia, encoded messages that Professor Wordsworthhad no trouble deciphering. It was, after all, his code. This fact led Wordsworth to believe he knew exactly who was sending the messages, someone with thorough knowledge of the Vatican and AX, as well as someone familiar with Professor Wordsworth's programming.

It wasn't a long list. Only one person was on it: Tres Iqus.

So Tres was sending them distress calls, the same one every hour, for the past several days. They were rather short, only that Tres and Esther had been kidnapped by Methuselah and were being held in smuggler tunnels under the Kingdom of Franc.

That Father Abel should arrive when he did was a stroke of good luck.

With only a day of rest to go on, Abel rounded up Father Leon (who was just as interested in protecting Esther as he was), Professor Wordsworth(who got them the  _Iron Maiden)_  he was off to the Kingdom of Franc in under a week.

It was a nail biting few hours. The  _Iron Maiden_ could only go so fast, but that didn't stop them from asking Sister Kate if "this thing could go any faster." She adamantly maintained that they could start walking for all she cared, but with Sister Esther and Father Tres's lives hanging in the balance, she was more than willing to deal with their grumbling until they reached Letetia.

Letetia was exactly how Lady Caterina had described it. Small, hopefully growing and free of rain.  _Iron Maiden_  lowered her ropes and Abel and Leon went into the town to investigate. The first place they went was the town's church, which was right in the middle of the city. Once there, Bishop Linda, who hardly blinked at Abel's request for thirteen sugar lumps in his tea, told them, tearfully, of the day of their disappearance, as well as the young girl that had went missing at the same time, the vampire attack and Esther pursuing them. She handed them Tres's guns, telling them that they'd sent out search parties as far as the next towns but had found nothing, no evidence of them.

Abel smiled at her, calmed her down, assuring her, just as much as himself, that they would be found.

Sister Kate had been presented with the signal Tres had been sending for a week now, and she was working towards locating the exact source of the distress call. She hadn't been able to pinpoint it exactly, and she had managed to find age old maps of the tunnel systems below Franc. That they were so expansive disheartened them all, but Professor Wordsworth tried to keep the mood light.

There were four entrances spread over several miles of open fields. The ones along the coast weren't worth looking into. But with several copies of the maps of the tunnels, Father Leon and Father Nightroad went in headfirst into the dark, weapons in hand. There was no way to tell if the vampires that had taken Tres and Esther were still here, in the caves, but it was better than scouring the world blindly with no leads at all.

They had found the young girl with Esther, in the same cell and chained to the wall. Cora, was her name, and she was a mute. Father Abel had been ready to take her and Esther out of the tunnels altogether, because their presence and the abrupt entry without the proper passcode had set of a self-destruction countdown. A purge. Gas inside pipes hidden within the walls and support beams were going to blow at the end of the countdown, and the entire thing was going to collapse. They didn't have any more time to search for Tres. 

He would get Esther and Cora out first, and then he would return and make one last, desperate attempt to find Tres before the tunnels collapsed. Esther was hysterical. She barely looked like herself. Pale, thin. She didn't know where Tres was, and neither did he, but she was adamant that she wouldn't leave until he was found. Abel took Cora out, meeting Father Leon halfway out and handing her off. Then he went back in to try and help Esther find the Gunslinger.

And when he was, Abel wasn't sure there as anything worth saving there.

Tres looked dead, he seemed dead in every aspect. He wasn't moving, he didn't respond to anything Professor Wordsworth did. His eyes were open, in a blank stare at the sky. He didn't blink against the rain. It was unnerving to see him like this.

Cora was returned to Letetia where the doctor promised to look after her. Esther was put into the care of Sister Kate once they returned to  _Iron Maiden_ , since she had collapsed almost as soon as she had gotten out of the tunnels, and Professor Wordsworth had locked himself away in a room with Tres.

This wasn't normal, any of it. There had been no sign of the Methuselah within the tunnels, or anywhere within a thirty mile radius of where they found the entrance. After Leon took Cora to Letetia, he made sure to give the area a once over in search of the "bastards that hurt my girl". He assured he'd be back in Rome in no time at all to watch after her.

This thing with Tres… Something was wrong with Tres. Something seriously wrong with him. These Methuselah had done something to him that even Professor Wordsworth couldn't identify. The scans showed that Tres was awake and active. But he didn't move or react to anything William did. By the scans, Tres should be up and talking to them, telling them about what happened.

But instead, he just… laid there. Dead. Numb to the world.

And no one knew why, or how. After days of scans and research, everything showed that Tres was fine. 100% operational. There was no reason for him to be like this, nothing Professor Wordsworth could find that, anyway.

Whatever these Methuselah had done, they had ruined the Gunslinger


	30. Chapter 30

Esther had nothing to wait for. Rome had been encased in darkened skies, and it rained for weeks on end. She didn’t have it in her to despise the rain. Rain felt like home at this point, and she would now sit where she could in it. She had gotten a cold more than once in the course of those three weeks, but even that felt okay. Even when her nose was so stopped up she couldn’t breathe through it, or when her body was wracked with feverish chills.

She hadn’t seen Professor Wordsworth or Tres since they got back to Rome. She had been brought to Caterina to speak to her, to tell her what had happened during those months in Letetia and within the tunnels. Esther was so disconnected that she didn’t even feel bothered when she told Caterina of what had happened within the tunnels, of how she found Tres after Father Nightroad had tracked her down and took her from her cell. She gave anyone who asked detailed descriptions of Seth and Lamia, and despite being behind the walls of the Vatican, with the grounds crawling with AX members, she always felt like there was someone breathing down her neck.

It was one cold day when she was with Father Leon, after he had returned from his reconnaissance in Franc, that she asked him how they had found them. When she was told of the signal Tres had been sending out, she remembered Tres’s promise that he would get the three of them out of the tunnels and away from Seth and Lamia. He had kept his promise, to a degree. She had come to terms with the fact that Tres had died, in whatever way he could die while still technically being alive, in the tunnels.

No matter who she asked, how she asked them, how she poked and prodded, no one told her anything of Tres. More than once, she went to the library or Tres’s room. Dust had reclaimed every book, every surface. His bed was perfectly made, not a single wrinkle in the sheets. Just like no one had been there in months, and as if no one was going to come back. It was depressing. She didn’t want to stay there, but at the same time she couldn’t leave. It was impossible for her to cry. Everything was a numb blur of events that had barely any relevance to her.

Everything was rainy and dark and numb. And she would rather feel as if her heart was being torn open than experience this blankness anymore.

It was strange. It was if Tres really had died, but she couldn’t react that way. She didn’t experience the stages of grief; she didn’t cry and beg for God to bring Tres back. She hadn’t prayed since the tunnels, and she didn’t know if she could ever do so.

When the rain stopped after all those weeks, Esther didn’t want to go outside. She didn’t leave her room, and no one came to see her. That was fine. She didn’t want to see anyone come through her door other than Tres, but that wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t know if AX members were buried when they died, but she hoped they were. She hoped that their friends were allowed to pay their respects to their fellow AX members. And if they were buried, like she hoped, why had they not had some sort of funeral for Tres? A part of her wondered whether everyone in the AX besides her and Father Nightroad saw Tres as a machine like he had claimed two years ago. Like he was just a collection of parts encased in what looked like skin ( _what felt like skin_ ) but wasn’t really. He was a machine, like a gun, and a machine could be thrown away when it stopped working without another thought.

Thinking that anyone could just throw someone like Tres away – someone kind and warm and loyal – was more heartbreaking than knowing that he was dead.

She had been put off of duty indefinitely until Caterina told her otherwise. This was perhaps the worst part of this experience. The waiting for something, anything to happen. It felt just the same as with Father Nightroad. Before she knew he was a Crusnik but she knew that he was hiding something from her. And it felt just as scary as leaving Istvan in the beginning. She had no idea what to expect, what to look forward to. It was hellish. There were so many things she could expect to happen. But none of these things happened, nothing came.

When she had managed to work through some of the worst of the haze that had engulfed her for weeks now, if not months, she would sometimes make her way down to the library that no one but she and Tres ever went to. She would often work her way through the dusty aisles filled with old books that Tres had already read, looking for titles that catches her eye for her to look over. Something needed to distract her, and with AX members not allowed to leave without dispatch from Caterina, she couldn’t go out into the city.

She wound up finding a book written about the ancient Roman Empire, and found herself more interested in reading about the hellish reign of Nero than she was about her own life. Attempting to distract herself was problematic only once she began wondering if Tres had read this book, because the history was interesting, and then she thought to suggest it to him. He did love old history books.

She didn’t realize she was crying until she saw her tears splatter onto the page. It surprised her. She closed the book, replaced it on the shelf, and left the library.

The sun was beginning to set once she left the library, her hands shoved into the pockets of her shorts and wishing she had worn pants. Where there were shadows, there was a chill that soaked into the bone. She realized that she should go back to her room and get to sleep, since curfew was just a little after sunset. She watched the shadows of her legs, stretched out before her on the sidewalk, when someone blocked her path.

It was a messenger boy, panting and bent at the waist with his hands on his knees. “I have… a letter, for miss Esther Blanchett,” he coughed, attempting to catch his breath, while he fumbled in his bag for the letter for her. “I was given entrance into the Vatican grounds to give it to you.”

She took the letter with shaking fingers, and she realized offhandedly that she hadn’t eaten anything that day. The hunger gnawed at her from the back of her mind, but it was easily ignorable when she wouldn’t think about it. She thanked the boy, and he turned and left the way he came. It was addressed to her, and it had been sent from Letetia.

That was all she needed to read before she was ripping open the envelope. 

 _Sister Esther,_ It was from Bishop Linda.

_It’s been several months since I have seen you last. I hope you are well, but I fear the worst. Another priest from the Vatican came and brought Cora home to us, and I was taken aside to be told that you were very shaken, and Tres had been incapacitated for the time being, but that you all were in capable hands and so we weren’t to worry._

_I hope I am not foolish to think that he was lying._

_There have been no major occurrences in our town since that last attack. Rain comes every now and again, but we need it to keep our crops watered. I have taken Cora under my wing, and she seems to be very interested in studying under the Church. She had begun to speak, only to certain people since she has returned, and tells me that she wants to be as brave and strong as you and Tres. I pray she keeps her childish innocence and becomes strong and brave, but by that point, this Methuselah threat will have passed._

_But I haven’t written you this letter for these simple pleasantries. I have written because I have a terrible feeling that has gnawed within me since I was last told of you and Tres’s state. I have never known a good priest to lie, but the priest who told me of you state seemed more fit to be rather than a lion than a clergyman. I suspect something terrible has happened to Tres, but my letters to others within the Vatican have been returned unread. You are the only one I can think of that I can send a letter of this nature to, and I only hope that the Vatican’s security will allow it to be delivered to you._

_Tres is the remnants of what was my brother, a man incredibly dear to me. He and I always had a familial connection, and I would be able to sense when something was wrong. I sense something restless within him now, as if he knows something is coming. I sense that something is coming as well. This uneasiness has affected my daily duties, and it has lead me to write this letter and send it with urgency. I only hope it will reach you in two weeks’ time, and you can urge your supervisors to prepare._

_Something is coming, Sister Esther. Something dangerous and unpredictable. I pray for your safety, but I fear it will not be enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I am an absolutely terrible fanfiction writer. Can you believe I almost came to abandoning this story all together? I can't believe it. I know I have no perfect excuse but I'm doing an internship and applying for college. Can you believe that crap? College went from next year to next week real quick.
> 
> So, something to note, and this is going to be very important for the course of the story, is that my writing style has changed. A lot. I used to struggle and work with myself because it is really hard for me to write dialog for characters. Since I realized that this was an inevitable problem in my writing, I've sort of come to terms with it, but it still bothers me quite a bit. So this means there may not be a lot of dialog in the remainder of the story (yes, I do plan on actually finishing it). I have a good road map set up in my head of how the rest of this story will go, and it will probably be pretty angsty, seeing as that my best quality work (so sorry about that).
> 
> Again, I sincerely apologize for my lax updating, but I'm going to be working towards working on chapters and getting them out to you guys as efficiently as I can. Thanks for all your support.


	31. Chapter 31

Not only was Bishop Linda’s warning ominous, it was also reasonably founded. In the nights after she received the letter, the people of Rome began seeing Methuselah running about in the streets and along the rooftops against the moonlight. Children and young women began going missing on those nights, and only a few of the bodies had been discovered underneath bridges throughout the city with bite marks on their necks and broken bones. She found Sister Kate within AX headquarters and requested an audience with Lady Caterina. This news had broken through the self-imposed quarantine AX had placed on itself, and it disturbed her. It reminded her of Letetia before they had found and stopped Jezebel, when she, Seth and Lamia were feeding on the unlucky stragglers they came across during the night.

Esther was told that she would have to wait a few days because Caterina wasn’t available for a meeting. Even when Esther told her it was urgent. She told Sister Kate that she had a bad feeling these Methuselah sightings had something to do with their kidnappers, and felt that it would negatively affect AX in the near future. Sister Kate took this information to heart, and said that she would relay it to Lady Caterina as soon as she was able.

So once again, she was caught in a limbo, waiting for something to happen, but this time, knowing it was going to come.

She wrote a letter back to Bishop Linda. She hardly had the heart to tell her that Tres was ‘dead’, so the first draft of her letter was a half-hearted lie. It took her the remainder of the night before she went to bed to come up with something to say. She had to tell Bishop Linda the truth, because the woman who was Alexander Braddock’s sister deserved it.

_Bishop Linda,_

_I wish I could give you good news. Since we were taken from the caves, things have been anything but easy for both Tres and myself. It took me several days of bed rest and proper meals before I felt anything like myself, and I wish I could say the same for Tres. I’ve decided to tell you the truth, however saddening this truth may be._

_When we found Tres, he was hooked up to a bunch of machines within the caves. When we took him back to Rome, a professor that specializes in robotics and one of Tres’s friends looked him over for any damage that may have been done. To make a long story short, Tres is dead. Since we have come back, I have not seen him, nor heard word of him. Every time I ask another AX member about Tres, they quickly change the subject or give me vague answers. I have not seen this professor since our return, when he asked me to give him detailed descriptions of the machines Tres had been exposed to when I was still bedridden. That was three weeks ago, and I have still heard nothing._

_When your letter arrived, I took your warning to heart. An ominous atmosphere has settled throughout Rome, and mere days after I received your letter, there were Methuselah spotted throughout the city. As with Letetia, children and young women are being killed, found beneath bridges or in virtually inaccessible parts of the city. Though the Vatican and AX grounds have been sealed, and we are not allowed to leave, the news has gotten inside and most of us feel uneasy about it._

_I have tried to get an audience with Lady Caterina, but she cannot see me for several days. I am afraid that these next few days will hold great danger for the people of Rome, and for the priests of AX and the Vatican. Unfortunately, I am unable to do anything. I’ve been placed on administrative ground lock until otherwise stated, which means I cannot leave the grounds. I cannot help the people of Rome._

_Before Tres and I left AX to come to Letetia together, he would come to the old library on the Vatican grounds. He loved to read, especially old history books. I believe that he must have read every book in that library before we left. He loved the library more than any other place on the grounds. Now, as I go there, I read the books that he must have read before we left, and it felt, for the first time, that Tres was a ghost._

_I don’t know if AX has funerals for their members that are killed. I sincerely hope so, but we have not had a funeral for Tres. I wonder if this is because he is an android, and the rest of the Vatican doesn’t truly see him as human. It would break my heart, should this happen, if someone thought it would be simple to just throw someone like Tres aside as if he were nothing. I hope that this is not the case, and somewhere within AX grounds, the professor is working to bring Tres back to us._

_I wish you all the luck. God be with you._

_Sister Esther Blanchett_

She ends her letter with her signature, and though she feels she should have said more, it was leading to depressing thoughts and she felt as though tears were coming to her eyes. She did hope that Professor Wordsworth was still trying to save Tres, and that was why she had not seen him on the grounds in the past three weeks.

It was certainly plausible, and that was currently where her thoughts resided.

Curfew had already passed, and she had no doubt that she would be severely reprimanded if she was caught, but this didn’t stop her from pulling on her dark robe and stepping outside her door, wary of the light above her. A quick glance in either direction revealed no one nearby, so she slinked into the shadows, careful to cover her pale skin as much as possible in order to avoid detection. The last thing she wanted was to worsen her chances of being put back on some type of duty any time soon.

Professor Wordsworth’s laboratory was on the other side of the Vatican grounds from the AX residence quarters. If she took the path through the paths through the garden in the middle of the grounds, she could get there without being out in the open, or in the light, too much. She supposed that many of the guards were placed at the main entrances of the grounds because she didn’t see many of them, and those she did weren’t paying much attention to their surroundings, or they were chatting with each other.

Some of the lights were on inside Professor Wordsworth’s building, including the light at the front door. The lights that were on were within his personal quarters, so he wasn’t in his lab working or experimenting. If she was going to get in, it would be through the front door, and with him inside, she wasn’t going to be able to get inside without him seeing her. Her only option was to knock on the door herself and hope that he didn’t turn her away, or call the guards on her.

It took her a long while to gather up her courage to go to the door and knock on it, loud enough for Wordsworth to hear even if he was in the back rooms. Then she stood, completely still and silent and stiff for what seemed like several minutes. The crickets chirped restlessly in the background, and it was the only sound before she heard the lock on the door turn, and the handle twisted before it swung open. Professor Wordsworth was there, with his pipe and robe, with one hand shoved in the pocket. He looked tired, stressed, but he smiled nonetheless when he saw her, taking the pipe from his mouth with his free hand.

“Miss Esther. Aren’t you out a little past your curfew?” He says this with an easy smile, but his voice sounded just as exhausted as he looked.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, looking over her shoulder for anyone. “I had to come. I… I need to see Tres. Please, Professor Wordsworth, I wouldn’t have come unless this was an emergency. And I assure you, it is. I think the Methuselah that hurt Tres are here in Rome. I know you’ve heard the news about the attacks. It’s just the same as Letetia before we stopped the rain. Kids and women going missing, then turning up dead in weird places. You have to let me go see Tres, please.”

Wordsworth stared down at her for a long, long time, listening to her plea with a subtle, unending nod. Even now, he looked down at her, and she could see the reflection of her desperate face in his eyes. It was slightly unnerving, but she wasn’t going to look away anytime soon.

“Ah, well, alright,” he laughs softly, opening the door wider and moved aside to let her come inside. She bowed slightly at the waist, brushing past William Wordsworth and going into the room. A fire burned in the hearth, and a lamp was lit on the table beside the chair. A book was over the arm of the chair, a leather bound journal on the table and she went to stand just by the fire, warming her hands. “So tell me… what is this Methuselah theory of yours?”

Professor Wordsworth had shut the door back, puffing on his pipe and sending smoke up, stuffing his hand back into the pocket of his robe. “When we were in Letetia, before we killed Jezebel and stopped the rain, the same, exact thing was happening. Kids and women went missing almost every night, and their bodies showed up in strange places. When we killed Jezebel, the rain stopped, but the killings weren’t only her. The Methuselah that captured Tres and I were more than likely brother and sister, Seth and Lamia, and when you all came to rescue us from the caves, they were nowhere to be found. They wanted revenge on us for killing Jezebel, but I have no doubt that they are coming for the entire Vatican, too. With AX members confined to the grounds, we’re vulnerable. And I think Seth and Lamia know that. That’s why they’ve come. And what if they’re in league with the Rosencreutz Orden? Dietrich could be coming here with an army to take out the AX and even the Pope and we wouldn’t know it! If he took Rome…”

“Civilization as we know it would cease to be,” the Professor finished for her, and she swallowed before nodding severely.

“I’ve felt uneasy ever since I got back to Rome,” Esther admitted. “I wasn’t told if anyone found or killed Seth or Lamia, and I don’t think they’re done with whatever their planning. That there should be the same exact type killings as Letetia with my suspicions… No, I don’t think we’re safe yet. They’re planning something. Something big, I know it.”

Wordsworth was silent again, doing that unending subtle nod, but with a grave look in his eyes. “Have you told Caterina about this?” he finally asked.

“I went and talked to Sister Kate earlier, and she told me that Lady Caterina couldn’t see me for a few days.” Esther shook her head, wringing her hands. “I don’t know if we _have_ a few days.”

Wordsworth sighed heavily, walking to his chair and sinking into it. He watched the fire behind her with pursed lips and a worried brow, and he eventually pulled the journal from the table, opening it to a page before handing it to her. She took it, surprised at the weight. “What is this?” she asked, before even reading what was on the page.

“The only reason we were able to find you, or even knew the tunnels were there, is because Tres was sending out a distress signal.” He vaguely gestured towards the journal. “When we got him here, Tres was still emitting the same signal, same coding, but with different wording. It’s been the same for three weeks, with only subtle variations. That’s the one from earlier tonight.”

Esther’s stomach churned at the mention of Tres. That he’d been sending out some kind of signal for all the three weeks that they’d been home, this meant that he was still alive, not dead like she had feared. She swallowed again, before looking down to see the message Wordsworth had gotten from Tres. It was written in messy handwriting and shorthand.

_3063ad.y663.mo09.20 – Letet. K.o.Franc. Methuselah th. imminent.Seth & Lamia Collab. w/Rosen. Orden’s Puppeteer (R. 9=2) Magi. Templi; Magician (R. 8=3) Magus; Fang; Hundert Gesicht (6=5) Adept. Major. Bound for Roma. Exc. arriv. 09.23.663. Pro. target: Vatican Papal State. Pro. casualties: insurmountable. _

“He’s been giving us that warning for three weeks.” Even when the Professor began speaking, she couldn’t tear her eyes off the page. Seth and Lamia were working with the Rosencreutz Orden, and they were coming to Rome to attack the Vatican. Her worst fears had been correct, and she didn’t know how to feel about this. “Sometimes the expected arrival date changes, but it’s always within two or three days of each other. I’ve given this information to Sister Kate, and she is going to take the _Iron Maiden_ up to keep an aerial of Rome. We’re going to evacuate the Pope to the bunker below the Vatican, and have soldiers from the Department of Inquisition guard him while the AX operatives that we have on grounds and the rest of the DI working alongside us. There’s no telling who else is coming other than the ones off that list. We don’t really know what to expect.”

“How did Tres figure this out?” she asked, her voice hollow, with an aching suspicion of exactly how.

“I can only assume he was able to access Seth and Lamia’s plans and collaboration with the Rosencreutz Orden when he was hooked up to the machines you described to me in the tunnels.” Professor Wordsworth reached up and took the journal back from her hands before closing it and setting it back down on the table where it came from. “That might explain why it’s being sent on the same signal.”

“Is he…” she began, and then cut herself off. She doubted he would answer her question, even if she asked.

“Awake?” Wordsworth guessed for her, and she nodded instead of giving a verbal confirmation. “No, he’s not. I’m still not sure if he will anytime soon. Like I said before, he should be awake, and I don’t know why he’s not.” He took a deep breath and sighed heavily, his shoulders slouching dramatically. “You can see him, if you’d like. You may not be too happy with what you see.”

Her interest peaked immediately, and eagerness overcame the dread and fear of what was going to happen. The 23 was only three days away, and whatever was going to happen would happen within that time frame. She clenched her hands to steady her nerves, and nodded, trying not to look too outwardly eager. Professor Wordsworth had already risen from his chair before she nodded, as if he knew her answer before she had given it.

He guided her down the hall and through the locked door that lead down the stairs to his lab. Since their return, he’d kept the lab on lockdown. The doors that entered in from the outside had been barricaded and locked, and even the entrance to the lab within the building was kept behind two locked doors. When the door was closed behind them and locked back, with the entrance to the lab just in front of her, she had to mentally and physically prepare herself before Professor Wordsworth opened the door.


	32. Chapter 32

The air in the lab was cold and stale, like there hadn’t been much airflow in much too long. The lab bench was cluttered with tools Esther didn’t want to imagine what they did, and books stacked where the tools weren’t. Parts for planned and failed machines were spread through the lab, and Esther thought she caught a glimpse of the gauntlet of the machine he had used to attack the Siren on their way to Rome, but something else caught her eye. An old medical bed was set up in the middle of the expansive laboratory, with computer screens and monitors beside it closest to the wall.

And in it was Tres.

The sight made her sick to her stomach. It reminded her so much of when she found him in the tunnels that she had to place her hand over her mouth and swallow the vomit that rose up in her mouth. The visor was over his eyes and something was plugged into every outlet on his body. He was laying perfectly still, and if it hadn’t been for something on one of the monitors screens moving, and the dust motes floating in the light coming from the stairwell, there would have been no movement in the room.

Wordsworth caught her watching the monitor and walked into her line of view. “That’s an EEG,” he explained. “An electroencephalogram. It measures electrical activity in the brain, both the mechanical and organic side. For Tres, those waves you see are normal, just like every day when he’d come in for a checkup or routine maintenance. And yet… he won’t react to anything I’ve tried to elicit some sort of response from him.”

Esther wanted to move, to go up to Tres and take his hand, praying and begging for him to wake up, but it felt like her feet had been glued to the floor, and her legs had been encased in cement. The Professor may have continued speaking, or he may have remained silent, but she couldn’t tell. Her entire world was zeroed in on Tres and his motionless body. She had moved past the sickening feeling in her stomach, and was now left with a chilling numbness.

She finally realized Wordsworth was waiting for her to say something when he laid a hand on her shoulder, making her jump nearly out of her skin. “I can leave you alone for a while if you need it,” he said, almost as if he were repeating himself. What was worse is that she could see the sadness and frustration on his face, and she knew precisely why. From what she had gathered on her fellow AX members, Wordsworth hadn’t been able to have children because his fiancée had been killed, and he was nearly twice Tres’s age (chronologically). From what Father Nightroad had told her, and what she had witnessed herself, Professor Wordsworth considers his creations, and consequently Tres, as his children. She didn’t have children, but she understood those parental instincts. Having a child and then being unable to help them when they needed it most must be devastating.

“Please,” she tried to say, but it came out weak and breathy. Nevertheless, William winked at her, moving behind her to leave the lab and go out the door. It was only when she heard him go up the stairs did she gain any courage or physical ability to go forward.

When her fingers grazed over the back of Tres’s palm, she was heartbroken by the fact that his skin was as cold as the room around them. Gone was the comforting warmth that his skin used to exude. After letting out an unsteady breath, she went and pulled a metal chair from a desk nearby that looked as if it hadn’t been sat on in months. The dust didn’t bother her. She sat down and took Tres’s hand despite his skins chill, willing her body warmth into it as she cupped it with both of hers.

“Hi Tres,” she said, her voice coming out of her throat raw and shaky. She didn’t know what she should be looking for or what kind of sign. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.” _It’s felt like forever._ “I, uh… I don’t really know what to say. I guess I just want to thank you. You promised me you’d get Cora and me out of the tunnels, and you did in the end. And I want to thank you for warning us about Seth and Lamia and the Rosencreutz Orden. I don’t think the Vatican would have made any kind of plans had you not told us about it.”

There was no movement, no subtle twitch of his fingers within her own grasp. Again, she didn’t know what she was expecting, but she couldn’t help but feel disappointed when nothing happened to show that he had heard her.

“I love you still Tres,” she choked out, throat tight and eyes burning. “I know you can’t, but I wish you would wake up. I miss hearing you voice. I miss holding your hand.” At this point, she had started crying, her tears dripping onto their joined hands below her. It was hard for her to speak, because every time she tried, it felt as if her throat was being held by a vice. “This isn’t the same.” Her voice broke on that last word, and she bowed her head, pressing Tres’s cold hand against her forehead. “I want you to wake up, please. Wake up and… go to the library and read something to me.” She inhaled deeply to steady herself, and swallowed to try and clear her throat to be able to speak again. “There’s a book about ancient Rome I know you’ll like. You always liked that boring history stuff.”

She looked up at his face, sniffling to keep her snot from getting anywhere. “Did you know that the ancient Romans built the aqueducts we use now? Or that… that the emperor Caligula made his horse a consul?” She laughed, without truly any humor. “I don’t know… I thought you’d like to know that if you didn’t know that already. You probably did. I’m rambling now, aren’t I?”

She let go of his hand to wipe at her eyes and nose, and used that time to sit up a bit straighter. “If what you told us is right, they’ll be here in a few days. We’re moving the Pope to the bunkers and we’re going to have the Department of Inquisition watch over him. I think Lady Caterina will be there with him, but I’m not sure. I just… I hope you’ll wake up before that happens. I don’t want to have to leave you here. Okay? Please wake up before then, Tres.” She stood up from her chair, leaning over to kiss him lightly on the lips, careful not to disturb the visor over his eyes.

In order to keep herself from bawling in front of Professor Wordsworth, she had to quickly excuse herself from the lab and head back to her room.

Unfortunately, she left a little too quickly, and was unable to see the subtle twitch of Tres’s fingers as she exited the room.


	33. Chapter 33

As things were, the uneasy atmosphere eventually came to a head. It was in the middle of the night when the alarms sounded, and Esther was scrambling to get on her clothes and boots as quickly as she could. Under direct instruction from Professor Wordsworth, she was to head to the _Iron Maidens_ launch point _._ Rain began falling, lightly, and the sky was a black void, neither stars nor a moon present. It was cold tonight, and as she ran, her breath clouded in front of her face. The clothing against her body suddenly seemed very cold, even though within her room they were much better than the gown she had previously been wearing.

Professor Wordsworth was waiting at the door for her when she finally arrived at the _Iron Maiden_. The rain had become sleet at this point and frost covered much of the ground before the rain had hit it. “Esther, nice to see you made it,” he says, hurrying her inside before shutting and sealing the iron door behind her.

“What’s going on?” she asked, breathlessly. “Have there been any reported sightings or attacks yet?” If someone in AX or the Inquisition, or even in Rome itself, were to be able to provide a description of a Methuselah that matched either Seth or Lamia, she may feel a little better about this situation.

“Not yet,” Wordsworth answered, gripping the bar along the wall as the _Iron Maiden_ took off. “But three patrol guards were found dead outside of the Pope’s quarters. And Petros found a few of his men ripped apart outside Vatican walls. Whatever’s been building up for the past few days is coming to fruition now.”

Looking out the window, she saw the lights of Rome passing below her, and wondered what was happening down on the ground. She suspected that Lady Caterina and Pope Alessandro had already been moved to the bunker beneath the Vatican grounds, and that Petros and his men had already surrounded the area for their protection. A sudden thought occurred to her, one that probably should have been more imperative. “Where’s Tres?” she asks Wordsworth, and once he’d taken a puff on his pipe, he answered her.

“He’s on board.” The Iron Maiden reached its cruising altitude of a few hundred feet over the city, partially hidden in the dark clouds covering the sky. “He’s been giving us new messages since before the alarms sounded. Lady Caterina and the Pope were already in the security bunker when Petros’s men were killed, and that’s thanks to him.”

“Has… has anything changed?” Esther dares to ask. “Has he… woke up? Or anything?” She tried not to sound hopeful, and as much as she wishes she didn’t, she can hear the childish optimism in her own voice.

Professor Wordsworth doesn’t answer her immediately, but she can feel his scrutinizing gaze as it rakes over her. It was almost as if he was debating on what he was going to say. He was probably going to say some sort of lie or exaggerated story in order to make her feel better, and that definitely wouldn’t work. Instead, he says nothing on the matter. “You may want to come with me,” he says, and they leave the lobby of the _Iron Maiden’s_ lower deck.

The Professor took her up to the third deck, and in front of one of the large screens used to view and monitor the _Iron Maiden’s_ surroundings. She could see various streets that were below in Rome, along with part of the river. When Wordsworth got there, however, he messed with the keyboard, typing too fast for her to correctly process what exactly it was. But the buildings beneath disappeared, and in its place came a blue screen, black text filling the entire screen so fast it was a blur.

“This is what Tres is sending us,” Wordsworth tells her, and she’s trying to catch words but it’s moving too quickly. “Do you know what it is? It’s all the data files AX and the Vatican have in record. It’s being downloaded into the _Iron Maiden’s_ mainframe.”

“And it’s just about to overload the whole ship!” Sister Kate’s voice made her jump, and when she turned her head, she was just able to catch her form shimmering into view. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she had a perpetually frustrated look on her face.

“Every AX officer is ordered to either destroy or hide every one of our files if the AX and the Vatican’s security were compromised,” Wordsworth explains, overlooking Sister Kate’s complaint. “I have no doubt other files are being downloaded into our other airships. Whatever is happening tonight, Tres doesn’t think the AX is going to survive the attack.”

“Tres is… protecting the files?” Esther repeated, dumbly, unable to think correctly, lucidly, at the moment. What else would Tres be doing, honestly? That was his job, his responsibility. So of course he would be. Whatever the Professor said next was completely broken off when the entire ship rocked violently, causing William and Esther to fall against the console and Sister Kate to disappear.

“Kate, what happened?” William nearly yells, only just able to keep his volume controlled. The screen began displaying a red warning that they were losing altitude over the streams of black text beneath.

“They’ve got an airship!” Kate’s voice came over the intercom loud and panicked. “We’re taking fire. Someone needs to man the guns! They’re going to hit the Vatican!”

William pulled himself upright just as _Iron Maiden_ stabilized in the air. He couldn’t operate the gun, and when he told Sister Kate so, she cursed under her breath. The original _Iron Maiden_ had a system that he was familiar with, he had been the one to assist in the design, but the upgraded schematics of _Iron Maiden II_ were completely foreign, since only Tres and Kate had been working on it. They were the only ones flying it, as well, so it made the most sense to let them design it.  

“You can’t operate it?” Esther repeated, her voice just as panicked as she felt. Neither noticed the black text had ceased filling out the blue screen, and all that remained was the red warning box blinking at them. Alarms began ringing, emergency lights flashing. _Iron Maiden_ rocked again as Sister Kate maneuvered away from the enemy’s airship.

William had made the screen into a live view of what was outside of them. The airship facing them was a bit bigger then _Iron Maiden_ , but that meant it was slower and Sister Kate had a chance of outmaneuvering it. The emblem of the Rosencreutz Orden was at the forefront of it, the goats’ horns elongating into something like a battering ram.

“I can’t evade them forever, Wordsworth!” Sister Kate yells over the intercom. “Use that big brain of yours and figure something-!” She cut herself off just before a massive explosion hit the hull of the Rosencreutz Orden’s airship, knocking it off to the side.

“What happened?” William asked her, as _Iron Maiden_ rocked from recoil after the firing of her main cannon. “Kate, what happened?”

When Sister Kate spoke again, it sounded like even she was trying to figure out what was happening. “Someone fired the cannon.” _Iron Maiden_ stabilized in the air. “Tres. It was Tres, he’s plugged into the mainframe and he’s operating the guns.”

Esther’s heart stuttered in her chest, and a dizzy happiness and relief overwhelmed her. Tres was awake; he was operating the guns of _Iron Maiden_. Another cannon blast hit the plated balloon of the Rosencreutz Orden’s airship and it began losing altitude, its trajectory sending it into the Tiber and taking out a bridge.

They probably weren’t expecting this, the Rosencreutz. They probably knew that Tres was the only one that could operate the cannons in _Iron Maiden_ , and since Tres was out of commission, _Iron Maiden_ was vulnerable. Now they were back in business. Now they had a formidable defense. Now, Rome had a chance.


	34. Chapter 34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say I feel like a shitty author? ;-;   
> I mean... I love this chapter but damn it took me five months for an update.  
> I'm sorry ;o; I hope you can forgive me. 
> 
> BUT this chapter is seriously kicking things off, in this Rosencreutz Orden vs AX/Inquisition showdown. I have a lot planned for the rest of this story and for how it's going to end, and I think you all will enjoy it~   
> Enjoy this chapter kiddos

He had known Rome was in danger before he even made it back to the Vatican. When he was held in the tunnels and hooked into the rudimentarily established database Seth and Lamia had developed north of Letetia, it had established an unintended direct connection to the Rosencreutz Orden’s files.

They were looking for information about the operations within Rome and the operatives of the Vatican and AX within his mind. A program developed by Dietrich Von Lohengrin – specially designed to tear down his firewalls – was working in his mind in order to get this information. (Its poisonous sting was in the back of his brain even now.) And while they were trying to get this information from him, he was working on extracting their information for AX.

The Rosencreutz Orden was so much more vast and powerful than they could have ever imagined. The members they had blacklisted were only just a small bit of their some. As such, they had more resources than the Vatican had initially predicted. When Airship Tristan was hijacked some years ago, the Rosencreutz Orden had copied the design and structure and put more into development. Now they had nearly a dozen, as well as countless Methuselah hidden within the deepest shadows of every city.

Rome was the center of what was left of the world. It was the center of commerce, religion, hope and authority, and it had the largest population of any city outside of Albion. It had been the foundation of the world for as long as the books told. Anyone who had Rome had the whole world in the palm of their hand. He knew this. Any novice within Rome would know this.

The Rosencreutz Orden was coming for Rome. They would clean out the Vatican and AX and replace them with their own totalitarian order. It would be chaos and carnage.

Tres couldn’t let that happen.

He began uploading the information held within the database of AX into the airships early. He went through and deleted arbitrary files that would just take up space and kept the most important on its path to the airships. With the damage the virus had done to him, it took a lot longer for him to do. Longer than it should have. When the attacks began, he still hadn’t finished, but had to cut the uploads short. He couldn’t stay idle anymore.

 AX needed to be on the offensive. They needed to start making plays. They couldn’t let the Rosencreutz Orden walk all over Rome.

So he got on the guns of _Iron Maiden_. Airship Tristan had been copied and modified, and its copies were firing down on Rome while it was targeting them. He began charging the cannons as he plugged himself into the mainframe, listening to Kate’s panic and incessant demanding that Professor Wordsworth figure something out quickly.

He fired the cannons into the balloon of Airship Tristan, unrelenting until it began careening into the river. It was only after did he pay attention to the nagging in his ear.

“Tres?” It was Sister Kate, voice high with suspicion, panic, and what he thought was worry. “It’s good to have you back in action, but… what the hell are you doing?”

“Give me control of _Iron Maiden_ ,” he said simply, already placing in the request and beginning the protocol for the control transfer. It wasn’t long until Sister Kate approved the request and authorized the protocol, giving him complete control of _Iron Maiden._

Immediately, he twisted the airship in the air at the sharpest angle he could. The ship groaned as a result of the damage she had sustained, but she would last for as long as he needed her. There were five more airships, none of which seemed to be paying much attention to the smaller, smoking airship twisting their way.

“Sister Kate, contact Lady Caterina and His Majesty and tell them to evacuate,” he said as he targeted the nearest airship, still out of range from the cannons.

“They have already evacuated to –”

“I know where they have evacuated to, but it’s a trap.” 100 meters before it was in range. His fingers were itching at the triggers. “The Rosencreutz know about the bunker, they’ve known about it for a long time now. They know it only has one entrance and one exit through the same tunnel. They’ll kill them both. They need to evacuate Rome.”

Radio silence. The airship came into range, so he fired the ion pulse at their rudders and hull, before breaking the balloon with the cannon. “Alright,” Sister Kate says, right as the airship crashes into the ground. “I told them. Petros is with them.” A long pause and he pulled the rudders into alignment. “Tres, the cannon only has two chambers left. One shot. The ion pulse can’t take much more it was damaged when- ”

“I’m aware. I’m targeting the ones bombing AX and Vatican grounds. I can handle the rest manually.”

As soon as he fired the ion pulse at the nearest airship, _Iron Maiden_ shuddered and quaked violently. “The ion pulse is out!” Sister Kate informed him in his ear. The core had been overworked and the cooling system was completely offline. It had overheated and blown out. The cannon only had two chambers remaining. There were still five more airships.

“Kate I need you to listen to me very carefully and do everything I tell you as quickly as you can.” He locked _Iron Maiden’s_ rudders but halted the ships progression. “I need you to give Professor Wordsworth and Esther an overview of the schematics of airship Tristan, specifically where the engines are located and how to get to them. Next we need to find Black Widow and get her on the ship. I’m going to need her help. I’m going to fire the last shells into the airship in front of us and then I’m ramming _Iron Maiden_ into her.”

“What?! Tres, don’t you dare hurt my – ”

“Kate, I have to. That ship has to be downed in order for my plan to work. Our first priority is getting rid of these airships, while the remaining agents handle whatever is going down on the ground. It’s a blitzkrieg and the Rosencreutz is relying on support from the air. The Professor, Esther, Black Widow and I are each going to board a ship and blow the main engines. I need you to get in contact with her, and give them the location of the engines. Can you do that in under a minute?”

The airship in front of them began roaring back to life after being momentarily stalled by the ion pulse. The rudders turned the airship towards them; the engines of _Iron Maiden_ shuddered back to life as he pushed it forward. If he could swipe at the rotor with the starboard he could take it out and send the ship down.

“I’ve contacted Sister Monica and she’s on her way to the airship at 41°55'13.2"N and 12°28'18.7"E,” Sister Kate says quickly as they near their collision. “I sent her the schematics of the airship and told her to target the engines with an overload program. Professor Wordsworth is prepared to handle the airship at 41°54'39.1"N 12°29'01.8"E and Sister Esther is prepared to handle the one positioned at 41°54'16.8"N 12°29'03.4"E.”

“And I can handle the last.” He fired the last shells at the airship nearest, effectively killing the engines.

“Brace for impact!” Kate announced through the ships load speakers. The front of _Iron Maiden_ rammed into the side of the airship, tearing open the balloon and sending it down. The metal of the front of _Iron Maiden_ crumpled as if it were made of tin, but the balloon didn’t rupture. Despite her damage, she could still fly.

Tres abandoned the controls for both the ion pulse and the cannon, steering _Iron Maiden_ towards the airship that Professor Wordsworth would be responsible for taking down. “Kate, have both Esther and Professor Wordsworth head to the cargo bay and have them grab the grappling hook guns. I’ll open the bay. They’ll each be responsible for getting onboard the airships. I’ll get them as close as I can.”

“They’ll need some sort of communication,” Sister Kate murmured, almost as an afterthought. “They’ll need to stay in contact with the both of us. I’ll give them both ear pieces.”

Tres hummed in agreement. They were nearing the airship, and it was trying to turn itself to get _Iron Maiden_ in the range of its weapons. They wouldn’t be able to succeed. Even though _Iron Maiden_ had lost its firepower, Tres could always rely on her speed. “I’m opening the cargo doors,” he tells Sister Kate, flipping the switch to release the lock.

“They’re both ready,” she responds. “Get in close and hold steady.” Tres banked _Iron Maiden_ heavily to the left, sending her nearly flush and a little above the airship that was still turning. He turned his attention to the exterior camera just in time to see the grappling hook catch the frame around the balloon and a small, dark figure fall from the cargo bay towards it.

Professor Wordsworth was on his way. Esther was next.

Tres pulled _Iron Maiden_ to the right, swinging her around behind the airship that was sure to be going down relatively soon. Wordsworth was an incredibly capable AX agent, and Tres had full trust in his abilities.

Esther, on the other hand, while strong willed, didn’t have the same skill set. He worried for her, but knew that she would be able to succeed. Her stubbornness was one of her most amazing assets. Once he had _Iron Maiden_ positioned at the next airship, he watched with apprehension tugging at him as she fired the grappling hook and made her way to one of the many external platforms it sported, just as the Professor had.

She would be fine. He had to have faith in her.

Still, it was hard not to worry. It was hard to quell the fear in his stomach that one of them wouldn’t make it back. That pessimism was something he had to work on.

“Kate, take control of the ship,” he told her, pulling his attention away from the camera. “I’m heading to the cargo bay. Get me above the next ship.”

“And then what?” she asked as she took control of the ship again. He pulled himself out of the mainframe.

“Land _Iron Maiden._ You need to keep her as safe as you can. Even land her outside of Rome if you need to.” Before he went to the cargo bay, he made one last stop to the room where he had been originally. His guns were still there, though they had skid off the table and into the floor. He put on his belt and slid them into the holsters. “Continue the file upload for as long as you can. I had to terminate the process when I hooked into the mainframe. My processor wouldn’t have been able to handle both at once.”

“What about you?”

He paused in the elevator, the doors closing and remaining stationary since he hadn’t yet selected a floor. It was only a temporary hesitation, however, and soon he was on his way again. That was an interesting question. What about him?

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her as he entered the bay. The doors were still open and the wind was furious. “Just worry about the data for now. We can’t let Rosencreutz get their hands on any of it.” He took a grappling gun from the wall, and stood at the edge of the open doors. He could smell smoke and ash in the air, and see fire burning far below _Iron Maiden._ “Is Black Widow in place?”

“She’s below the airship currently. Even with her skill, she’ll have to find a way to get in it.”

“She’s more than capable.”

A few more moments of silence pass. He can see the airship come into view below them. _Iron Maiden_ slowed. “We’re in position,” Sister Kate said. He nodded and fell from the cargo bay, shooting his grappling hook at the highest platform on the side of the airship. With the wind, he couldn’t hear anything else, and even though Sister Kate would be speaking directly into his ear, he doubted he would hear her if she said anything.

Tres let go of his gun and rolled to relieve the pressure on his legs, pulling out his Beretta’s in the process. No one seemed to be on the lower platform, but he was more than aware this could change, faster than he would like it to at times. The light from the fire engulfing much of Rome cast an eerie red glow on his surroundings. He kicked in the door, the laser sights on his guns coming to life as he prepared to kill whatever got in his way.

“Good luck, Tres,” Sister Kate said as he went inside. This was the last he heard from her for a long time.


End file.
